Begin Again
by TheMadQueenCersei
Summary: Emily Prentiss never thought she would be divorcing Aaron Hotchner. But when he started spending so much time at the Bureau that they had to take separate cars, Emily knew things were changing and she couldn't watch him fall out of love with her. So she called it quits. Now they're dealing with the fall out and starting over but how do you move on from someone you're in love with?
1. Love Will Remember

Emily paced nervously around their bedroom. _Her_ bedroom, she corrected. There was something so devastatingly lonely about that that she didn't like to think about. Sun was streaming in through the white curtains, but she felt cold. Emily was always cold, nowadays. She shook her hands, trying to rid them of the numbness that always seemed to settle there now, and distract herself from the strange sense of wrongness that came with no longer wearing her rings. Her left, fourth finger felt light, naked almost. She folded her arms, to stop herself from fidgeting. He would be here soon and she needed to calm herself, she needed to be collected when she opened the door. She needed to compartmentalise. Emily sat down on the bed, which sank comfortably under her weight. What she wouldn't give to climb back beneath those covers and sleep for a few days. Restless nights weren't a new thing to her, not by a long chalk. Sleepless, anxious ones were.

She wasn't scared. It wasn't that kind of anxiety. It was the kind that came with an extreme change. Since Aaron had moved out, everything was quieter, tidier, now that there was less stuff in the house. That was so unnerving. Having the bed to herself was a strange feeling, too. She didn't like it. In fact, she hated it so much that for the past few nights, she'd been allowing their six year old, Ava, to sleep in her bed. Ava missed her father so much, that sleeping on Aarons side of the bed, wrapped up in one of his shirts that he had left, which Emily hadn't washed yet, was comforting her. It was a secret she would always keep close to her heart, but having his smell so close was soothing for Emily, too. She could hear Ava banging around in her bedroom, packing a bag to take to her fathers, and, raking the hair back from her face and using the hairband around her wrist to tie it up, she made her way down the hall.

Ava's room was a mess. That was nothing new - Ava seemed to have completely avoided the neat gene that both of her parents had passed down, and she had a storage system all her own; a non-existent one. Emily wasn't as strict as Aaron, when it came to keeping things in order, but she liked things neat. Ava had no such issues. Her bedspread was awry, her teddy bears scattered around the room, along with all of her toys. There were clothes _everywhere_.

"Remind me never to let you pack your own bag again," Emily smiled, walking into the room and scooping the dark-haired little girl up into her arms, "At least, not until you know how to fold." She tugged a scrunched up dress out of the backpack Ava had filled. Filled was a loose term. The butterfly adorned bag was overflowing with frills and bows. Ava certianly hadn't inherited the girly gene from her mother; Emily had always insisted that it was Auntie Penelope rubbing off on her. Aaron was inclined to agree.

"I want to take toys to leave in daddy's." Ava told her mother, matter-of-factly, as Emily sat down on the bed, settling her daughter on her lap. She dug through the bag and found, buried underneith what turned out to be very few items of clothing, an array of toys. Barbies, a baby doll and bottle, stuffed animals and a few of pieces of her play make-up; a present from Auntie Pen, of course. The sight of her daughters little treasures all packed into a bag made Emily's stomach turn. They were some of her favourite toys, and she was going to take them to Aarons. Best not to look too much into that.

Emily nodded and gave the bag to Ava. "Put some more toys in there, sweetheart, I'll get you another bag."

She left Ava's room and headed to the closet at the end of the hallway, next to their stairs, in which she kept towels, suitcases, backpacks. Anything that didn't really fit in a bedroom or living room, she shoved in there. She opened the door and stopped. It was like looking into a mirror of the past, as she stared at her wedding photo. She had hidden it away in here when Aaron had first moved out. It had been too painful, and three weeks later, it still choked her up and would, she imagined, for the forseeable future. She grabbed one of Ava's little suitcases and closed the door. She was going to have to do something about that. But, what? She couldn't throw away ten years of memories simply because they were painful.

Fifteen minutes later, she was standing on the inside of her front door, waiting for the knock with bated breath. Ava had been staring out of the lounge window, waiting for her father and her big brother, Jack, to come and pick her up. She had squealed with excitement and raced upstairs to get her bags when she saw the car pull into the drive. Emily didn't know how ready she was for this encounter; she had taken a few weeks off work, hadn't had to see him since the day he had walked out. Their only communication had been over text, to organise him picking up their daughter. When she heard his knuckles rap against the door, she inhaled deeply, put a smile on her face and opened the door.

"Emily." He was smiling, too. She wondered if his smile was as fake as hers, and, if it was, did he know that hers wasn't real?

"Hey," She stepped back. It felt so wrong to have to grant him access to his own home. Only, it wasn't his home. Not anymore. Jack was just behind him. Technically, he still lived here, but he was living in his uni dorms at the minute, anyway, so their living arrangements didn't affect him. He hugged her and she smiled, hugging him back. There was something so comforting about the fact that she and Jack could still interact this way; she wasn't his mother and he had never called her 'mum', but that had never bothered her. She didn't need that title to know he loved her, and she loved him, and they were irreplacable parts of each others life.

"Hey, kid," She used her nickname for him, the one she had used since he was little. He was growing up, alright. Taller than his dad now, with the same dimples and a mop of unruly brown hair, he was a real looker, "Hows school?"

"It's good," He said, in the mans voice that she still wasn't completely used too. She still saw him as the little blonde boy who had cheered for his father, waving a banner, at the F.B.I triathalon, "The physical side of it is a bitch, but-"

"Language." Aaron said. Emily felt her lips tug into a smirk. There would forever be something amusing about Hotch telling off his adult son for swearing. "Where's Ava?" He asked her.

"Oh, she's just grabbing her stuff."

As if on cue, they heard the pitter-patter of the little girls feet on the landing and she came into view at the top of the wide staircase.

"Daddy!" She squealed with excitement, and Hotch crouched down as she came bolting down the stairs.

"Don't run down the stairs, it's dangerous!" Emily's chastisation fell on deaf ears as Ava launched herself from the third step, into her fathers waiting arms. She looked so tiny as he lifted her up and she wrapped her arms and legs around him, like she wasn't ever going to let go. Emily's heart twinged, yet again, and she saw how much this was affecting her daughter. Jack was smiling at her, holding her outstretched hand as she hugged Aaron. She had hold of one of his fingers and Emily thought that was an almost accurate depiction of their relationship. She had them all wrapped around her tiny little finger, but none more so than her big brother. And, maybe, Uncle Derek.

"You ready, princess?" Ava nodded, not releasing her father from the chokehold he had her in until Emily insisted she hug her goodbye.

Emily closed her eyes and inhaled the scent of her daughters shampoo when she hugged. It wasn't unusual for them to be apart, nor with their job, but there was something unsettling about having Ava leave her, instead of it being the other way around. She kissed her daughters cheek and Ava demanded a piggy back from Jack.

He laughed. "Come on, then, monkey." He bent down and let her crawl onto his back, her arms wrapped tightly around his neck. If it was uncomfortable, he didn't comment on it. He just kissed Emily's cheek, glanced between her and his dad and then ducked out of the front door to carry Ava to the car. There was a beat of silence, and Emily instantly knew she had to fill it. They couldn't be silent _and_ alone together. All that would hang in the silence would be sadness and tragedy, and that was just too painful.

"Every time I see him, I'm startled by how tall he's gotten." She laughed, falsley, looking at the door where their children had just exited. Aaron was quiet and she knew he was looking at her. The smile faded from her lips and she swallowed, composing herself, before she looked at him.

His face was set in that impenetrable stare she was so familiar with, but she hadn't seen it directed at her for a long time. No, that was a lie. She had seen it directed at her, for the first time in a long time, three weeks ago when she had told him it wasn't working anymore. It made her want to squirm and shrink away, but she didn't.

"Don't look at me like that." She told him.

"Like what?"

"Like I'm still that girl who walked into your office fourteen years ago, all smiles and energy. Like you don't trust or like me."

"How should I look at you, Emily? Like you're my soon-to-be ex-wife? I don't know how to look at that person." His reasoning shot right through her heart, but she didn't let that show on her face. She gave him a small, sad smile, instead.

"How about you look at me like I'm your subordinate collegue, since thats what I am?"

"You'll never be just a collegue to me, Emily." He stepped forward and, before she could protest, he pressed a kiss to her forehead. She closed her eyes at the contact, overwhelmed by the emotion of the situation and overpowered by the simple closeness of him. Her hands came up and curled into the lapels of his jacket, holding him close to her, loving the warmth and smell of him. She released her hold on him as soon as he drew his lips away. When she opened her eyes, it was to the sound of the front door closing shut behind him.


	2. She's Come Undone

Several hours later found Emily sitting in her lounge, in her pyjamas, with a glass of red wine in her hand, watching The Notebook. She was almost awestruck by how much of a cliche she had become; before Aaron, Emily had never been one for wallowing in the destruction left by a failed relationship. But, before Aaron, she'd never had a relationship that lasted more than a good few months. In fact, before Aaron, her longest relationship was with an ex-IRA soldier who later tried to kill her. Who actually _succeeded_ in killing her, since she flatlined in the ambulance, but that was just a technicality.

Was it a good thing that her longest relationship had been her marriage, or was it sad that her marriage was her _only_ long-term relationship? Somehow, as she sipped her wine, it didn't matter.

"At least you're not eating ice cream." Emily told herself. And, of course, that only made her crave ice cream.

Anyone who had known her before she married Aaron who saw her now would laugh at her, she thought. Or, worse, they would pity her. She set the glass down on the coffee table, deciding there and then that she wasn't going to wallow in her own grief any longer. The empty, quiet house made it easy for her to do it, so she wasn't going too. She would put this time to good use; it had been a while since she'd had a hardcore gym session. She hadn't had one since before Aaron moved out, since there had been no one to mind Ava, but since she had an evening to herself, she would put it to some good use and get some of her frustration out at the same time.

Night time had always been Emily's favourite time to work out. The gym was empty and bright, the darkness of night pressing against the window. If there was anybody walking past, she knew they could see her, but she couldn't see them so it was easy to pretend they didn't exist.

The walk to the gym was slightly unnerving, but she wasn't particularly scared; as an F.B.I agent, she had the ability to disarm anybody or even knock somebody out if they attacked her. It was a rather empowering thought, actually. But still, there was something about having been involved in some of the sickest cases of all time that left her occasionally glancing over her shoulder. The hairs on the back of her neck had been standing on end for years; she was never truly settled. It was territory that came with her occupation, which she loved, but that didn't mean it was easy to deal with constantly being on edge. It was times like this that she needed one of Aaron's massages. One of the many little things she would miss.

She headed straight for the treadmill when she got into the gym. This, she had decided, was just going to be an all round workout to blow off some steam. She ran intervals for half an hour, was sweating by the end, which was good. It was obvious, to her at least, that she had been away from the gym for some time. That came with a break in regularity. There was nothing regular about her life, anymore, she contemplated, as she moved over to the punching bag. She turned her head over, stretching her neck, one way, then the other, while pulling her arms, stretching them, loostening her shoulders, before she planted a kick in the middle of the bag.

She had been flung from the stability of her life into the unpredictable ocean of singleness that she was experiencing right now. It wasn't even the fact that she was now a single woman that got to her. The idea of being a single mother was absolutely terrifying to her. Aaron was there, but they were both going to keep working, she assumend, which meant that Pen or her mother would have Ava when they were out of town, but it also meant Aaron wasn't going to be able to see her as much because their daughter would keep living with Emily and she was going to want to see her when they got back from cases. Of course, Emily would never stop him from seeing her, but he was the one who had made it so difficult for them to continue with things as they were. _Why_ did he have to insist on talking about work all of the time? Why did he have to start spending so much more time at the Bureau that they ended up having to take separate cars?

She wasn't innocent, she knew, but a large part of her blamed him for their problems. He probably blamed her, though, which irritated her. She had been difficult by the end, she knew, but that was only because she was so mad at him for what he was doing to them. She loved him so much that she had put up with it for so long; she knew he loved her, loved their family, loved his children more than anything. But he loved their job, too. Or, at least, he felt obligated to give it the largest part of him. And Emily couldn't live with that. Her job was a priority of hers, but it came second to her family. By the end, she hadn't felt like that with Aaron. She had felt as though they came second to the job, and that wasn't fair on her or Ava. She had known he was a workaholic when she married him, she had gotten herself into this mess. It was her fault, at the end of the day, that her heart was broken into a million little pieces.

"Emily!" She heard, through what she was slowly realising was an internal rant, and which she had been physicalising by beating the hell out of the punching bag. Someone was standing behind her, holding her arms, as she struggled, trying to punch the bag, thrashing around to try and free herself. "Emily! Whoa, princess, you need to calm down."

Morgan folded his arms across her chest and she slowly calmed down, focusing on levelling her erratic breathing. When he was sure she wasn't going to start thrashing around again, and murder the punch bag, he let her arms go and slowly stepped away from her. She was staring at the floor, her eyes wide, shocked at herself. There was a pain in her knuckles and when she looked down, she saw that she had been going at it so hard on the punch bag that she had torn the skin. She didn't even know that was possible.

He offered her a water bottle, then Morgan moved to sit down on one of the benches that ran the length of the room, between the work out stations. Emily unscrewed the cap, not even wincing at the pain in her knuckles or her joints; when you'd been stabbed or shot as many times as Em had, reacting to pain that trivial was a little ridiculous, really. Taking a long drink of the water, Emily put off the conversation she knew was coming. She suddenly felt very tired and very worn out.

Sitting down next to Morgan, she inspected her knuckles. He was looking at her from the corner of the bench, where he lounged, one arm on the arm of the bench, the other slung across it's back, one ankle resting on the other knee. He was looking at her with confusion and curiosity. It took her a minute to realise Aaron mustn't have told the team what was going on between them; Emily hadn't told any of them. She'd blamed her absence from work on a nasty case of shingles and once she decided she'd been ill for long enough, she'd pulled in all of the holidays she had left and sprung that on them, along with a reminded that she'd worked on Ava's birthday the year before, a Saturday. HR had put her holidays through without questions or protest, for which she had been grateful. The team thought she was still sick - the only way she' d been able to keep them away from the house was to tell them she was _extremely_ contagious.

Morgan was still looking at her and, with a sigh, she rested her head on her hands and spoke.

"Aaron and I broke up."

From the corner of her eye she saw his expression change. His eyebrows lifted and his mouth opened. His foot dropped to the floor and he leaned forward, putting a comforting hand on her back. "Whoa, Em. That wasn't what I expected. I came in and saw you killin' it on that bag and thought you guys had been in some married couples argument, or something." He was quiet for a few seconds, then leaned back, running a hand over his face. "Shit. So, this is why you've been off?"

She nodded.

"Damn. Hotch has been even more anal and even more of a drill sergeant than usual. I guess you're the reason for that, too."

"You're blaming me?" Emily asked, incredulously. She wasn't offended; Morgan couldn't offend her. They'd been friends for too long for that, and she knew his speech patterns well enough to know he didn't mean any offence by what he said. Sometimes he just didn't think about his wording.

"Don't be crazy." He said, in a quiet voice. Wordlessly, he put an arm around her waist and pulled her to him, hugging her, comfortingly. There was no hidden agenda; Morgan had tried that, years ago, before she and Aaron had even noticed each other romantically, and he'd been gently rebuffed. He hadn't tried anything since then, seriously, anyway. His flirting was another story altogether, but that was truly harmless. Right now, it was just nice to know that she had a friend, and the contact was comforting, too. Aside from the kiss on the forehead that morning, and the hug and kiss from Jack, the only human contact Emily had had in the past three weeks was Ava. She nestled into the hug, closing her eyes and wanting to cry. But her tears wouldn't come. She was all cried out, it would appear, even though she could still feel her grief inside of her, like a tangible object that was hacking away at her heart.

They stayed like that for a while; he was patient with her and waited for her to be the first to move. She was grateful for that. She needed the comfort. It didn't make her feel better, though. She doubted anything would, for a while. It just...made her feel less alone in her sadness.

When she did move, it was slowly and quietly. She sat back and tugged the hair band out of her ponytail, rubbing her scalp at the relief of letting it down. Morgan was quiet, for which she was grateful, and he waited for her to speak. She didn't know what to say. Looking up, she met his eyes and saw confusion.

"I don't know," She responded to his unasked questions, "Everything just...went bad." She hesitated after that statement. "I still love him and...I _think_ he still loves me. It's just...marriage is difficult, okay?"

"Of course it is, Em. There's no science behind it, which," He gave a little laugh, "Must be hard for the two of you, you control freaks. But you've made it work for a good nine years. What changed?"

"Everything got _too_ difficult. The good used to outweigh the bad and it just stopped doing that." Emily shook her head, bringing her hand to her mouth and biting at her thumb nail. "He started staying a lot later at the Bureau, so much so that we started taking both of the cars in to work, which we'd never really had to do all that often. It became an everyday thing. That was the start of it, I think. Or maybe it was the end. I don't know."

"Princess, I don't know what to tell you. I always thought you and Hotch were great together; I still think it. Obviously I'm not inside your relationship, but from the outside, it always looked pretty perfect."

It had been perfect, too, for a long time. Then, one day, seemingly out of nowhere, it simply wasn't perfect anymore. Emily didn't have a response for her friend, she didn't have an explanation. If she did, she might have been able to fix it, but, as it were, there was no solution that she could see. Maybe she and Hotch weren't the perfect couple Morgan had labelled them as.

* * *

 _ **AN.** _ Thanks so many people for favoriting or following the story, I'm so glad you guys liked the first chapter so much and I hope you like this, and all of the chapters to come, just as much! I don't have the entire story written out, so you may have to bare with me at some points, but I try to write a good three chapters in advance of posting.

Also, just a minor thing, but in my mind, Emily and Hotch and the rest of the team aren't as old as they would be if this was the Canon timeline. In my mind, they were simply in their mid-twenties/early thirties when they met, which puts Emily at almost 40 and Hotch at 44-ish. I know the BAU doesn't hire younguns that often, but we'll all pretend they all got in on early acceptance like good ol' Dr Reid!

Thanks, hope you love this, and Hotchniss, as much as I do!

S x


	3. Here We Go Again

Monday brought with it anxiety and stress. Ava had spent the weekend with her father and brother and had come home on Sunday evening disheartened and sad, after Hotch had informed her that he probably wouldn't see her for a few days, and that Jack was going back to University and wouldn't see her until Easter. Emily had cursed him, inwardly, while she comforted her thoroughly saddened daughter, who cuddled into her mother with heartbreaking tears rolling down her face. Emily had done her fair share of crying these past few weeks, but seeing how Ava was being affected by this, it was really hitting her.

The thing about having children, Emily had contemplated, after Ava had finally fallen asleep on her lap and been put to bed, her eyes and cheeks red and puffy, was that decisions in life weren't your own anymore. As a mother, Emily was living for two. That didn't end once the child was born, as she had thought. She doubted it would ever end; Ava was her priority, her life, and right now, the decisions she was making were failing her daughter. Not only had she broken Hotch's heart when she had called it a day on their relationship, she had broken her Ava's heart, inadvertently, when her father had moved out of their family home. Hotch was her hero, and she simply couldn't understand when he couldn't be with her anymore. She often tried to keep her profiling skills at bay when it came to Jack and Ava. Analysing children almost seemed like _cheating_ , to Emily. She couldn't parent as a profiler, but it wasn't a skill she could simply turn off, so she found herself figuring out Ava's perception of events through her actions. So far, Emily had figured out that Ava wasn't dealing with it very well. Not at all.

Emily had woken on Monday morning feeling unrested and riddled with anxiety about the day that would follow. She was going back to work, and she didn't doubt Hotch would be there too. As if it wasn't going to be awkward enough seeing him, the rest of the team were immediately going to know that _somethin_ _g_ was going on, even if they didn't know exactly what, and someone was sure to bring it up at some point.

Standing in front of the mirror in the bedroom, Emily was tugging at her shirt; she wasn't wearing anything she wouldn't, ordinarily, but something about her clothes today just didn't feel right. She knew it had nothing to do with her outfit, but she had convinced herself that the red shirt was too tight, that the trousers were too short, the heels on her boots too high.

"You look pretty, mommy." The small voice from the door tugged at her heart strings and she turned to see her daughter leaning on the doorframe, dressed for school, holding her hairbrush in her hand. Ava looked down at it. "Will you braid my hair? You haven't, for a long time."

Emily had no words. She opened her mouth to speak, closed it again, swallowed thickly and blinked back tears of guilt that threatened. Plastering a smile on her face, she nodded. "Of course, sweetheart."

She sat down on the chaise lounge beside the window and gestured for Ava to come sit on her knee. Her daughter was right; it had been a while since Emily had braided her hair, or plaited it, or done anything to it that wasn't throw it up into a pony tail to keep it out of her face. She had no excuse, she chastised herself, as she gently brushed her daughter's hair together and began to separate it into three different pieces. Soon, it was done and Emily felt even worse that she hadn't had the five minutes it took to do it, for a few weeks.

Ava took back her hairbrush and went to stand up, but Emily wrapped her arms around her daughter, resting her cheek on the top of Ava's head. Ava didn't move, she leaned back against her mother and sighed. "I love you, mommy." She said, in a meek little voice uncharacteristic of Emily's normally bubbly little girl.

Emily exhaled, slowly, and kissed the top of Ava's head. "I love you, my little one."

* * *

Sitting in her car in the Bureau's carpark, Emily thought back to how nervous she had been on her first day on the job. At least, back then, there had been an excitement with her anxiety. Now, there was only confusion and dread. How was she supposed to act? There was no procedure for her situation; at her age, Emily had thought she was past the awkward encounters with her exs'. Now, she was going to have to see him every day and every day it was going to hurt just as much as it would today.

It wasn't just about her, though. It was about the team. They had been through _so much_ as a unit, and each time it had almost broken them, and each time they had somehow come out stronger on the other side. From Reid's' abduction and drug addiction to Pen's almost death, Haley's murder, Emily's _actual_ 'death', Rossi's wife's suicide, Maeve's death, JJ's miscarriage...they had all been through the wringer at one time or another, some of them had been through it more than once, and they had come back because they had the team to lean on, to depend on, to build each other back up. But that couldn't happen in this situation. She and Aaron couldn't put the team in the middle of this, because it wouldn't fix anything but it _could_ break them all.

"Come on, Emily, get it together." She muttered to herself, closing her eyes and gripping the steering wheel, grounding herself, preparing herself. It was with a groan that she finally shoved open the drivers' side door of the car and climbed out, grabbing her briefcase as she did so.

She was greeted by several people as she made her way up to their floor.

"Emily! Good to see you're better!" Someone called to her as they passed in the corridor. Emily smiled back, but didn't have time to stop. She stepped into the lift and pressed the button for her floor.

"Hold the lift!" Immediately, she wanted to slam the 'close doors' button. She didn't want to hold the lift, not at all. Because she knew that voice. She had spend fourteen years knowing that voice, loving that voice. And she didn't want to spend time alone with Aaron, especially not just before seeing the team. She didn't want to walk into the round room blushing, or with eyes swimming with tears. But politeness and social protocol dictated that she must hold the lift, so she hit the 'open doors' button.

"Thanks." Aaron said, as he stepped into the lift. Then he noticed who he had just stepped into the lift with. "Oh, Em. Hi."

Well, that wasn't awkward at all. She smiled, not knowing what to say. Would it always be like this? She really hoped not.

"I didn't realise you'd be back today, too." She said, then realised how it sounded. "Not that there's any reason why you shouldn't be back today..I just meant...you know what I mean."

He was smiling at her, a tiny smile of amusement that held something more behind it. An incredible sadness. She smiled back then had to look away, towards the front of the lift. He did the same, she saw, and when the lift arrived at their floor, he was the perfect gentleman and gestured for her to go first. She thanked him and walked out. Now what? Did she wait for him so they could walk together or did she continue on and they would walk in mere seconds apart?

Life had just got a hell of a lot more complicated.

* * *

"Alrighty, my little chickadees, you are travelling to the West Coast. Cali, to be exact." Garcia said, as she walked into the conference room. The others had just entered and sat down; there had been little time for anything aside from welcoming Emily and Hotch both back into the fold. "Em, Hotch! My loves. Welcome back! Are you feeling better, E?"

She nodded. It was a lie. Not only because she had never been ill, but because she didn't feel well at all. "Yeah, thanks Pen. Sorry I had to miss girls night." She glanced at JJ, an apologetic expression on her face. The girls waved it off.

"We'll reschedule." JJ said, with a smile.

Morgan, across the table, with his elbow on the arm of the chair and his head leaning on his hand, was looking at her with a measured expression; he glanced between her and Hotch every now and then and Emily prayed that he wouldn't say anything. She knew he wouldn't, but she felt the tension in her shoulders at the possibility.

"Right, well, so glad you're back, my brunette beauty. You too, Em." Penelope said, with a mischevious wink at Hotch that made everybody smile. "But what I have here for you is much less delightful news. Three nights ago, a ranger in Yosemite National Park discovered, the following images aren't suitable for anyone who might hurl up the cream cheese bagel they ate for breakfast this morning...this."

The image on the screen in front of them was gruesome at best. Even after a decade and a half of dealing with seeing pictures like the ones in front of them, the team still had to take a moment to compose themselves. JJ brought a hand to her mouth and closed her eyes briefly, Spence cleared his throat and swallowed, thickly. Morgan was shaking his head and Rossi looked a little green. Hotch was the only one who's face was impassive. Emily vocalised her disgust.

"Oh, my god." She said, tilting her head down and touching her hand to her forehead. It was overwhelming, even for them.

It wasn't one body. It was several, all in different stages of decomposition, each missing at least one limb. There was one that was just a torso, a headless, armless, legless torso. From what they could see, there were at least five of them.

"That's how they found them."

"They weren't hidden at all?" JJ asked Penelope, scrolling through more pictures on her tablet. Garcia was shaking her head. "Wow. Whoever did this has no regard for their victims. There's absolutely no remorse here."

"Complete Psychopath." Morgan agreed. "Do we know who any of the victims are?"

"Not yet, they're still working on it."

"Garcia we're going to need-"

"Access to the morgue, contact with the Police Department, Park Rangers and Coroner. It's all set for when you land." She interrupted Hotch. She was good at her job; it still shocked the team _how_ good she was.

"Thank you." Hotch was nodding. "We're going to need you in Cali with us. I have a feeling this promises to be a complicated one. Wheels up in thirty."


	4. Turbulence

"Thank you, so much, Mom. I really appreciate this. I'm sorry I can't give you a day we'll be back yet. Tell Ava I'm sorry, too. I'll call you tonight before she goes to bed. Love you too, bye." Emily hung up the phone, hitting her palm with it out of frustration. Elizabeth was used to getting phone calls, requests to babysit her granddaughter for an unpredictable amount of time, and since she didn't work and had keys to Emily's house, it meant that neither Elizabeth nor Ava's schedules would be interrupted. But that didn't mean Emily didn't resent having to rely on having her mother there to look after Ava, no matter how much both parties enjoyed each others company. It had shocked everyone how close Elizabeth and Emily had grown since Ava's birth; the ex-Ambassador had showed up shortly before Ava was born and insisted on being in the delivery room. At first, Emily had protested, insisting that she would have JJ and Aaron there and that would be enough. As it turned out, though, having her mother there was the greatest comfort and they had had a much better relationship since.

"Elizabeth is having Ava?" Aaron asked, walking over to her. She turned around, slipping her phone into her back pocket.

Emily nodded. "Yeah, she said it's not a problem. I told her we'll phone before Ava goes to bed, to say goodnight."

Now Aaron was nodding. It appeared as if nodding would be their main method of communication from now on. "Thank you." He said, formally. It made Emily tense when he spoke to her like that, but it was how she had asked him to treat her. Like a colleague. Not even as a friend, but as a subordinate colleague. He, she supposed, was working through this as best he knew how, just like she was.

"What are you thinking about this case?" He asked her, and she was immediately grateful for the distraction.

"I think it's too early to start speculating," Emily said, then continued, "But if I was going too..I'd say we're dealing with a loner; the way the bodies were all dumped in one place suggests an accelerated timeline that is less common in teams. Psychopath, obviously, we already established that. Has to be strong, not only to have mutilated the body's the way they did, but to have blitz attacked the victims, so I would say male and he's probably a labourer of some sort."

"What makes you think it was a blitz attack?" Hotch asked, with the slight tilt of his head that she was so familiar with.

"You don't think they are?" She questioned him right back. She hadn't considered that the unsub could be luring his victims. That, she reminded herself, was a side effect of being away from their line of work for a few weeks.

"I don't think we should rule it out. I see where you're coming from; the way he mangled the bodies makes it obvious that he's psychologically deranged so we have to assume he's not comfortable talking to people and interacting with them, so he definitely wouldn't have the charisma to lure them...but look at back at some of the psychopaths we've dealt with, namely Foyet and Doyle, just a few examples. They were charming in their own rights."

Emily was nodding in agreement, "Right. So don't rule anything out."

"That's all I'm saying." He confirmed, with a slight smile, before walking away. She watched him and after a few steps, he looked over his shoulder. "Maybe this will work, after all."

Emily smiled, but all she could think was how much it pained her to have him so close, but for him to be so emotionally distant, and how she didn't have the right to be upset about that since she had helped him slide the wedge in between them.

* * *

"I think you guys should know," Garcia said, when they were all comfortably sitting on the jet, "That we're entering Mariposa on the back of a hurricane, so weather conditions are kind of severe at the minute. Hope you all packed your waterproofs."

"I hope you didn't." Morgan commented, with a nod at the blonde's white dress. She smacked him on the back of the head with the closed laptop she was holding - gently, of course. There was scattered laughter, before the images from earlier popped up on everyone's tablet screens and the tone fell into a sombre one.

Emily felt as though she had spent more of her life on this plane than she had anywhere else, in the past fourteen years. They had been out of Virginia more than they had been in it and she had spent more time with the team than she had with anyone else. They really were her family. She was agitatedly tapping her pen on the notebook she had been jotting notes on, while she daydreamed and internally stressed about the situation she was in when JJ put her hand over hers.

"What is with you, today?" She asked,, "It's like you've come back a completely different person."

Hotch, in the seat opposite JJ, glanced up at the pair, and Emily caught his eye. JJ looked between them, confused, but Emily just shook her head.

"Nothing, I'm sorry. Just trying to get back into the swing of things. I shouldn't have taken that time off."

"But I thought you were sick?" Reid noted, from beside Hotch, "So the time off wasn't optional."

"Yes, thank you, Reid." Emily agreed, a slight note of annoyance in her voice. "I worded that badly. I wish I hadn't had to have that time off. Better?"

Reid nodded, looking a little meek and shocked by the way she had snapped at him. Emily took pity on him, shaking her head with a sigh. "I'm sorry, Reid. I'm not feeling myself today."

"Maybe you're still a little sick?" JJ said, reaching up to put a hand to her forehead. Emily waved her hand away and stood up, setting the notebook down on the table. They were all looking at her now. She knew she was behaving oddly and that she had to pull it together.

"Yeah, maybe. I'm going to..." Her sentence trailed off and she walked down the plane towards the bathroom. She went inside and closed the door behind her, leaning her forehead against it for a few moments before turning to look at herself in the mirror. She _really_ needed to sort herself out, not even for the team but for the case. She didn't want the team to know what was going on between her and Aaron yet, but that meant having to behave as though everything was normal, when everything wasn't normal and wouldn't be ever again. Or, at least, it wouldn't be what it used to be. She would have to find a new normal. Turning on the tap, she splashed her face with water a few times, why she didn't know, but it made her feel a little better. She did feel a little hot; being in a confined space whilst under such duress as she was wasn't helping any, not at all, especially since the source of her duress was sitting diagonally across from her. God knew why Aaron had chosen to sit with her and JJ, as oppose to on the other table.

 _He's trying to be inconspicuous, you idiot. The exact opposite of what you're doing._ A voice in her head said. She looked at herself in the mirror, her flushed, now wet face, and rolled her eyes at herself. _Pull yourself together, Emily. You're not this mopey, tragic little girl. You never were and you don't have to be now._

She stood up straight, pulled her jacket into place and it was at that very moment that the plane gave a violent jolt upwards. She felt herself being flung backwards and lost her footing. Another jolt and she was flung forwards. There was a searing pain in her forehead as she collided with something she realised, in a dazed state, was the sink. The ceiling was dancing as she looked up at it, feeling the plane jolt around some more, throwing her body around the bathroom like a rag doll. Her world quickly faded to black and she couldn't feel the turbulence anymore.


	5. Ring Off

When the plane began violently jerking about, there was a scramble to stop things from falling from the table's, as well as grabbing for belts and surprised exclamations. None of these noises, however, could drown out the bangs that came from the bathroom, where Emily had just gone.

"Emily!" Hotch shouted down the plane. He wanted to get up and go to her, but he couldn't; Reid was sitting between him and the aisle, and he wouldn't be able to walk down the plane until the turbulence stopped. Every instinct in him wanted to move, but practicality told him that was impossible. He saw Rossi draw a cross over his chest, muttering something to himself, and remembered his friends fear of bad flying. The others had all gone pale in their fear; in all their years on the jet, they had never experienced airwaves quite like those. JJ was gripping the table with one hand, the arm of her chair with the other, and her eyes were squeezed tightly shut. Beside him, Reid had hold of both of his chair arms and was staring down at the floor; his eyes were squinted but not closed completely. Hotch doubted this would be good for the Reid's headaches. Garcia was repeating profanities under her breath, clutching one of Morgan's hands to her chest.

Once it had finally stopped, or calmed down at least, Reid unplugged his belt and jumped up. Hotch was already out of his seat and knocked the younger man off balance as he raced down the length of the plane. The others weren't far behind him as he went and he knocked on the door.

"Emily? Honey?" He called; there was no response and she hadn't locked the door, so Hotch pushed it open and was met with resistance. He had enough room to squeeze into the room and found Emily sprawled on the floor. "Shit. JJ, clear the sofa."

JJ did so as Hotch picked Emily up with care and moved her to lie her down on the sofa. She was, it seemed, unconscious and there was an angry red welt on her forehead which indicated why.

"Dammit, why wasn't there a turbulence warning?" Rossi said, and he moved up the plane towards the cockpit just as the tannoy came on with an apology from the pilot. The italian stopped and leaned on one of the chairs with an annoyed exclamation. " _Idiota!"_ He said, in his rarely used italian. "Is she going to be okay?"

"I think so." Hotch said. Having checked Emily's vitals as best he could, he thought she would be fine. She should wake up soon enough. They would be landing in half an hour, the pilot had informed them, along with his apology, so he hoped she would be awake before then. She was already going to wake up disoriented and with a headache, best she did that somewhere she was familiar with. "Somebody call down to the ground, tell them we're going to need a medic as fast as possible, once we land."

"I'm on it," JJ already had the phone to her hear. "Yes, hi, Agent Jennifer Jareau -" She wandered off back to her seat to speak to whoever was on the other end of that phone call; someone from the city police, Hotch didn't doubt.

He sat down on the floor beside where Emily lay on the sofa. She looked peaceful, aside from the red welt on her forehead that contrasted with her pale skin. She didn't look well; her illness story was quite a convincing one, because she had come back to work looking thin and as if she hadn't been sleeping properly. That was his fault. He expected that he didn't look much better himself.

Morgan was standing nearby, leaning on the wall. He had come rushing over with the rest of them, but he hadn't left yet. He was observing Hotch and Emily. Hotch didn't look like a man who wanted to divorce the woman in front of him. He looked as in love with her as he had for the past decade and a half. It was baffling to Morgan that the two of them seemed intent on denying themselves happiness. Something must have happened between them, or to one of them, that he didn't know about because something like this didn't just come out of nowhere. He folded his arms and sighed, and Hotch looked around at him.

"She'll be fine," Hotch said to him, reassuringly. Morgan nodded and put a small smile on his face, wanting it to look as though he was just concerned for his friend and not like he was internally profiling their relationship.

* * *

Emily woke up, groggy and with a searing headache, on their descent to the ground. JJ had made sure there was a medic, or several, waiting on the ground for them, but as soon as Emily heard that she was, of course, insisting that she didn't need one.

"As your unit chief, Emily, I have to insist that you let someone take a look at you and check your vitals." Aaron said, with a note of authority in his voice that had always had a unique effect on her. She held back her smart remark, instead closed her eyes for a moment then tried to push herself up into a sitting position. Hotch was right there, one hand behind her back, to help her.

"They might take me off the case."

"Then so be it." The rest of the team were exchanging looks. Emily could read their expressions and most of them were amused. That was good, it meant they didn't suspect anything. These kinds of arguments weren't strangers in Emily and Aaron's marriage, especially when they were in the field, but it had been a while since he had bossed out on her like this.

Emily held her tongue and didn't bite back the way she wanted too. She wanted to insist that she wasn't going to stay at the precinct while they were out in the field, but she knew there was no point in an argument until she'd been seen by the medic. She brought a hand to her head, where she could feel her headache pounding away.

"Uh, Emily..." Reid said. She looked up at him. His eyes were narrowed, focused on her hand. Emily went cold as she realised what he was looking at. Her rings, or lack therefore of.

"Reid." She butted in, smiling at him, hoping he wouldn't comment. "I'm fine, really."

He got the hint, but he wasn't going to forget it, she knew. It was going to be one of those things that bugged him, but he would be too polite to bring it up. She was going to have to find five minutes alone with him at some point. Or maybe it was time they told the team. Morgan knew, Reid was going to know, if he hadn't already figured it out. Garcia and JJ would be pissed when they found out Emily hadn't told them first.

"Come on," Hotch said, "We have to get you sat down while we descend."

He put a hand under her arm and she stood up on unsteady feet. The pounding in her head was getting worse; she would be concust, at least. Emily had endured enough injuries on the job to recognise the symptoms to some of them, and a concussion was definitely no stranger to any of them. She could already feel the nausea starting. JJ put a reassuring hand on her knee when she sat down, giving her a soft smile. Emily shook her head, smiling back at her friend.

"I'm fine, really. It's just a bump. I feel bad that I slept through the flight. Did we get any new information?"

"Don't you worry about that until we're sure you're on the case." Rossi told her. She rolled her eyes.

"I'm not a china doll." She laughed, "I'm fine. Come on, we've all worked with worse injuries."

"No point fighting this, my darling. Six against one, I'm afraid. No work until you've been cleared." Garcia said, with a mockingly apologetic expression. Emily knew she was right so she rolled her eyes once more and sighed.

* * *

Emily didn't quite get the all clear, and although he wouldn't admit it, Hotch was quite relieved. It meant that she would be back at the precinct with Garcia, out of the way of danger and out of the way of their awkward encounters. It was half selfish, half selfless. Emily wasn't half as happy about it as he was. She had done nothing but roll her eyes and argue with the medic all through her check up, insisting that regardless of his diagnosis, she was here to be on the job and she wasn't going to spend her time indoors.

"Come on, Aaron," She said to him, her hands on her hips, when he told her what the medic had told him. "You've got to be kidding me. You know I'm fine. You can see that I'm fine."

Truthfully, she didn't feel fine and she knew she was being stubborn. Her nausea hadn't completely dissipated and there was a sofa in the room they'd been given to use by the city police that looked like it would be fantastic for a nap, an idea which was sounding more and more appealing by the second. That, in itself, was a bad idea; sleeping on a concussion was never a bad idea.

"Em, it's not my decision. Although, if he'd told me you were fine, I'd be making you stay behind anyway. You had a nasty fall, the bump on your head hasn't gone down yet. You know it's the only real solution, here, you're just being stubborn."

He was right. God, she hated that he was right; he could see it in the way she looked away from him and glared at the wall. Her eyes were narrowed, her lips pursed. It was an expression he'd seen on her face many times. An expression he loved. One that always made him laugh, because she was just so goddamn beautiful, even when she was trying to look angry.

"What are you smirking about!?" She demanded, looking at him through narrowed eyes. He shook his head and looked away.

"Oh, by the way," Emily said, and something in her voice told him he wasn't going to like what he was about to hear. He turned around to look at her,his expression guarded. She was inspecting her nails, which was never a good sign. "Morgan knows."

"About...?"

"About astrophysics. What do you think, Aaron? He knows we've separated."

Hotch just stared at her for a few moments before he spoke again. "I suppose we couldn't keep it a secret forever. How did he find out?"

Emily was a little reluctant to explain that part too him. It meant telling him she'd had what could only he described as a break down, in the gym. And she wasn't ready to admit that to him yet. It was childish of her, she knew, but she didn't want him knowing that this was affecting her so much more than it appeared to be affecting him. If only she could be inside his head.

"I was at the gym and we just got to talking. He said he'd drove past the house and he was confused why there weren't any lights on. I had to explain where you were." Emily would never have claimed that it was her best lie. In fact, it was far from a good lie, let alone her best. Aaron could see she wasn't telling him something, but he wasn't about to push it. He didn't have the right to push it anymore. He simply nodded.

"The rest of the team will know soon enough, anyway." He told her. She followed his eyes, guiltily, down to her ringless hand. Then she glanced at his. His thin golden band was still in place. Her throat went dry with guilt.

"Where are the others? Should we tell them, or should we wait until after the case is closed?"

"I sent Rossi and Spencer to the morgue. JJ and Morgan are at the dump site. Garcia is talking to the press. I think we should wait, let's get the case out of the way first."

"Are we any closer to figuring this out?" His disheartened expression told her everything she needed to know. "See, Hotch, we need everyone on the team working, I can't just sit here and.."

Just as she was launching into another speech about how she needed to do her job, there was a knock on the door and a man, who Emily assumed was in charge around here, walked into the room. He was the kind of man who liked to run his station from behind his desk, if the suit he was wearing was any indicator.

"Agent Hotchner," He hooded at Aaron, "And Agent...?"

"Prentiss." Emily had never formally changed her name at the Bureau: there was always only going to be one Agent Hotchner. And she preferred for the precincts they worked with not to know that she and Aaron were married. They had discovered early on that it made them question the teams efficiency; Emily hated that there were still some people who would question the professional nature of their relationship. It really wasn't anyone else's business. But, she supposed, with a brief, sad glance at her unit chief, that wouldn't be a problem anymore.

"Your team is back."


	6. If I Never See Your Face Again

The sight that greeted Rossi and Spencer at the morgue was stomach churning. It was one thing to see pictures of such a vicious mutilation, but to see it in person was an entirely different story. And they had seen some horrible things. Spencers' mouth went dry when the sheet was pulled back off the first body. It was a young woman, Spencer guessed that she was no more than twenty-five years old, if that. And she was missing both of her arms. There was, though, no other sign of mutilation to her body. He could tell from the shapes of the other bodies beneath the sheets, as well as the photographs Garcia had shown them, that they were all missing certain limbs. The limbless torso was one table over. Spencer didn't think he had the stomach to see that.

"My best guess," The attendant told them, "Is that they used a machete to take off the limbs. The wounds point to a rounded blade. But the wounds _were_ inflicted a while ago. Two weeks, at least. So it's difficult to make a definite diagnosis because of the decay."

Rossi nodded and gestured for the woman to put the sheet back over the body. By the expression on his face, he wasn't appreciating the smell much more than Spencer himself was. He was trying to be polite and professional, though. Spencer knew that they would stop noticing the smell soon enough, what with smell being the weakest sense, but that didn't help at this moment in time.

"So he's efficient." Spencer said. "No hacking at the bone. It was...clean, for want of a better word."

"But why keep the bodies?" Rossi asked, gesturing to the other tables in the room. "I assume each of them has been dead for an extended period of time?"

"She," The attendant gestured to the woman they'd just seen, "Was the last one of them left alive."

"So," The italian continued, "Why keep the bodies after the deaths?"

"A fetish?" Reid suggested. Both men looked at the attendant, who shook her head.

"There was no sign of sexual assault on any of the victims."

"So we've got an efficient, violent, psychopathic murderer with no gender preference and no sexual agenda." Rossi recounted. He looked at Spencer, who looked perplexed, unsure of what Rossi's mind had been figuring out that he himself hadn't yet considered.. "I don't think we're dealing with just one unsub here. I think this is a team. A duo, at the least."

* * *

"My god, Garcia," Emily was saying, "I know you're good at your job and you actually have something to do when we're all out in the field, but how do you do it? How do you stay here while we're all running around out there?"

Garcia glanced up from behind her laptop screen to see the brunette spinning around in her chair, running her fingers through her hair, agitated. She smirked, slightly amused by her friends obvious irritation.

"I prefer to be away from the action, my love. It's a lot less icky and gory, even if I do have to see it on my screens." She had a point, Emily thought. She hardly loved seeing all of the death and violence that they did, but she would rather be out there, trying to stop it with action, than be at the station and feel as helpless as she did right now.

"Emily Prentiss?" The british accent that came from the doorway was one she hadn't heard for a good few years, but one she wasn't likely to ever forget. The arrogance and confidence that simply dripped from every syllable was unmissable. She turned around in her chair and was met by the smirking face of none other than Mick Rawson himself.

"Wow, Mick, hi." She greeted him with a smile. "What are you doing here?"

"The Red Cell are here on a case. I assume you guys are too? Wow," He commented as she nodded, "California isn't doing so good, huh?"

She almost laughed. "Yeah, well, life would be boring if everywhere was doing good at the same time, don't you think?"

He had a point, though, she thought. The fact that the F.B.I had sent two teams to the same state meant that California was in trouble. The fact that they were both stationed in Mariposa was almost inconceivable. Even more unusual was the fact that the last time Emily had seen Mick was in San Francisco.

"I don't believe we've met," He said, to Garcia. She waved at him over her laptop.

"Penelope Garcia, their," She nodded in Emily's direction, "Resident genius, i.e. Tech Analyst."

"Nice to meet you, Miss G." Rawson smiled at her. Emily had to fight the urge to roll her eyes. He hadn't changed, then.

He was looking at Emily with a curious expression. She glanced down at herself, then back up at him, with narrowed eyes. "What?"

"My question is...why are you here? Why aren't you out being practical and fighting crime hands on with the rest of your team? I don't believe the girl who ran through traffic chasing an unsub has changed that much that she now sits behind a desk and does the research." He glanced at Garcia, "No offence intended."

"None taken." She shook her head, although she looked as though she didn't quite believe that Mick understood the meaning of the words 'resident genius'.

Emily shook her head, smiling, wryly. "No, actually, I uh...I have a concussion." She gestured to the red mark she knew was still on her forehead. It was slowly going down; she wasn't going to end up with a black eye or anything, which was good. There had been too many times when she had gone home with some kind of wound that she had been forced to explain to Ava. Twice, she had been forced to explain bullet wounds. They had only been grazes, but that didn't mean Ava was any less scared. "Turbulence." She offered, as further explanation.

"Ah, that's too bad. Your old man made you stay behind?" He was referring to Hotch, she knew. She just offered him a noncommittal smile that he would interpret in his own way. He wouldn't be able to interpret anything by it that she didn't offer him. And if her own team hadn't figured out what was going on yet - or, most of them, anyway - then he sure as hell wasn't going too.

Then she noticed that he, like Spencer, was staring at her ring less finger. Dammit.

"Yeah, well, you know. He's a little overprotective." She told him, hoping he wasn't going to say anything, "Comes with the nature of marriage."

Rawson was nodding, but he had a smirk on his face that even she couldn't quite interpret. He stood up, turning to look between her and Garcia. "Well, it's been nice seeing you again, Emily. Nice to meet you, Miss P. I'm sure I'll see the two of you again before we all head back to the Big Q."

And with that, he left. What a peculiar encounter, Emily thought. How odd that, of all places, she should run into Mick Rawson in California, when she never bumped into him in Virginia.

* * *

"The woman you guys saw at the morgue is Claudia Lewis. Twenty-four years old, Science major at UCLA, smart, rich, pretty. According to her missing persons file, which was filed a month and a half ago, she was visiting Yosemite with her boyfriend. She went out one night to find a convenience store for cigarettes and didn't come back. Car was found in the carpark of a store nearby." Garcia told the group, as they all sat around the table in the room allocated by the local police.

"With only 2.62 violent crimes per 1000 persons, Mariposa has one of the lowest crime rates of all the counties in California. It's definitely in the bottom ten. So we start off with Claudia Lewis. A middle class, intelligent student. A low-risk victim, she visits a low risk location with her boyfriend, yet somehow ends up on our list." Spencer reeled off to them all.

This case was becoming more and more perplexing by the minute.

"We need to talk to her boyfriend." JJ was saying. Hotch nodded, agreeing with her.

"You and Spencer head there. Garcia," He asked the blonde across the table, "Do we have anything on any of the other victims? The two males?"

Garcia shook her head, a frown on her usually smiley face. "I'm sorry, I don't have anything yet. From what the morgue attendant told Spencer and Rossi, I'm trying to match dates with missing persons records, but I'm coming up blank for Mariposa so I'm going to extend my search to the surrounding counties."

"Good. Keep us updated with that. JJ, Reid, find out if she was acting strangely, if there was anybody in her life she was wary of. Rossi and I -"

"And me." Emily said, standing up from her seat, as the others did the same. From beside her, Hotch looked unimpressed. "I know you told me I had to stay here and I have for the past few hours. But it's almost been an entire day. Please, let me do something today that doesn't make me feel completely useless."

Around the table, in her peripheral vision, Emily could see the team exchange glances. Then all eyes were on Hotch. Emily had pulled out the big guns and she was looking at him with wide eyes; he never could deny that look. It was with a defeated sigh that he nodded.

"Fine. Rossi, Emily and I will go and watch the CCTV. You two," He pointed at JJ and Spencer, "Go and talk to Claudia's boyfriend."

* * *

Emily had a smug expression on her face as they walked to the car. She was looking at the floor; she didn't want to look as though she was gloating. Hotch glanced at her.

"Don't do that to me again," He told her, under his breath so that Rossi couldn't hear them. She looked at him, innocently, as though she didn't know what he meant, when she was perfectly aware. "The wide eyed, pleading look. You know that's not fair."

She laughed, softly, and when she spoke it was with sincerity. "I know. I'm sorry. But you know me, Aaron, you know I'm not the type of person who can sit back and do nothing, while everyone else is helping. That's just not me."

"I know," Aaron said, as they reached the car. He opened the passenger side door for her, "It's one of the reasons I fell in love with you."

Emily paused in the act of climbing into the car and looked up at him. He was closer to her than he had been since the evening he'd picked up Ava. There was an intensity in his eyes that she hadn't seen for a while, an intensity that she had missed. A special kind of intensity that he reserved solely for her. She had to take a deep breath to steady herself, as his eyes trailed down to her lips. She shook her head.

"Hotch, we don't have time for this." She sat down and pulled the door closed behind her, trying to compose herself in the few short seconds before he climbed into the drivers side.

* * *

 **A/N:**

Thank you guys for your lovely reviews, the follows and the favorites! They're all appreciated and they all motivate me to keep writing! I'm so glad you're loving _Begin Again_ as much as I am :) You can have two chapters today, for being so lovely.

Little game for anyone who wants to write a review: the chapters are all named after songs by contemporary artists. Do you know who they all are? The title is a song, too!

Thanks,

S x


	7. Biggest Mistake

"So we're saying its a group now?" Emily said, to Rossi and Hotch, as they drove to the convenience store where Claudia Lewis had last been seen, or, at least, where her car had been found after she'd gone missing. "I put it to Hotch that I didn't think it was a group, because of the apparent accelerated timeline."

"I don't think there was an accelerated timeline," Rossi responded, "There was no sign of sexual assault, so that's not the reason they were keeping the bodies. I don't know what they wanted them for, or what they wanted the limbs for, but I don't think they got rid of the bodies because they _had_ too. I simply think they stopped being useful, or necessary. The torso that had been completely dismembered, for example, although she wasn't the last to die, her beheading was the final wound inflicted on any of the bodies."

"So you think it's about the body parts?" Hotch asked him. Rossi, in the back of the vehicle, was nodding. Emily closed her eyes; anything to do with body part fetishes and she was ready to sign out of the conversation, although she knew she couldn't, of course. The only thing that disgusted her more was cannibalism. Or maybe necrophilia. It struck her, on occasions like this, just how disgusting some of their cases were, just how disturbed some of their unsubs were. Some of them didn't even have any kind of diagnosis for their behaviour. Some of them simply killed because they _enjoyed_ it. They should come up with a diagnosis for that, Emily thought, for someone who simply enjoyed killing. Psychopath didn't quite cut it anymore.

* * *

"Was Claudia acting strangely, at all? The night that she disappeared?" JJ asked, gently. The victim's boyfriend, Jason Finch, sat on the sofa opposite her and Spence. He was sitting with his legs apart, his elbows on his knees; his expression was a soft, if pained, one. He wasn't displaying any paranoid or guilty behavior. Garcia had informed them on the drive over that he had already been interviewed by the police, so she attributed his knuckle cracking to the nervousness of being put in a situation that reminded him of that one. His eyes were ringed with red; he hadn't long been informed of Claudia's death and, although she had been missing for some time, he was obviously shocked by the news.

Jason was shaking his head. "No. Not at all. We were having a good time. It's nice to get away from it all, you know? From university. I didn't want to go back..after she went missing. I wanted to stay here, incase she turned up one day. So I've been staying with my mom."

"Were you and Claudia staying with your mother?" Spencer asked. Another shake of his head.

"No, we rented a lodge down near the park."

"That's an expensive weekend away, for two students." Spencer noted. He was only making an observation, JJ knew, but to Jason, that came out almost like an accusation.

"We were going dutch. But it wouldn't have mattered anyway. I have money." That much was obvious. The house they were in was clean. Not only in the sense that there was no dust, no dirt, no clutter anywhere, but in the sense that the house was obviously one of luxury. Everything was very pale, very white, very expensive looking. Jason's mother wanted anybody who came into this house to know she had money. From the way Jason was dressed, all in labels, he was the same way.

"Did Claudia have anybody she didn't like, or anybody who didn't like her? Anybody who made her nervous?" JJ reverted back to questions about their victim. Jason dropped his head into his hands, thinking hard about the question. When he looked back at them, he was shaking his head.

"No, no!" He said, almost frustrated. "She was an amazing girl. There was nothing anybody wouldn't like about her. _Everybody_ liked her. She liked everybody, too. She was nice like that." The frustration had died out of his voice by the end. He had stumbled to a muted stop, his voice growing quieter by the word. JJ could see that he was getting upset again, and she felt for him.

"I'm sorry," She said, in a soft voice, reaching out to put her hand on the boys knee. "I know this must be difficult for you. I can't imagine what you're going through and I'm sorry that we have to ask you to relive all of this pain...but it's the only way we're going to be able to catch the person who did this to her. You understand?"

"Yeah. Yes." He said, composing himself. He took in a deep, rattling breath. "Look, I'm sorry but I don't think I have any more information that could help you. I told the police everything, they have my statement." He was done talking to them; there was a certain point at which the conversation simply couldn't be picked back up, and Jason had reached it. JJ gave him a small smile and stood up. Spencer followed.

"Thank you for your time," He said,, shaking the hand that Jason offered, "Once again, we're sorry for your loss. We'll inform you once the case is closed."

Jason thanked them and saw them to the door. Walking to the car, JJ turned to Spence.

"Do you think he's on our suspect list?"

The man shrugged, looking back at the large house. Too large, most would say, for a woman alone. "I don't know. He seemed genuinely traumatised by her abduction and death. But, at the same time, he's our only suspect at the minute, since he was the last known person to have seen her." They couldn't just go by that, though, Spencer knew. Especially as it probably wasn't factual; Claudia had probably seen people at the convenience store. "I think we'll know more when the others get back with that CCTV footage."

* * *

"Wasn't this given to the police, when Claudia was reported missing?" Emily asked the security guard who was looking for the video file from that night.

"They didn't ask for it." He told them. Emily and Hotch exchanged a glance. That didn't sound right. They were going to have to mention it to the Detective running the case; asking for the CCTV footage of the last place a victim was seen was Case Solving 101. Common sense. "Here it is."

"Skip it to the evening. Around seven." Rossi told him. That was the time she had gone out, or so Finch had told JJ and Reid. Sure enough, once the video was skipped ahead to that time, a car pulled into the carpark of the store. Out climbed a woman.

"Okay, so that's Claudia. She goes into the store fine, which is this footage," Emily pointed to the screen besides her, on which played a video of Claudia coming into the store, buying cigarettes and a bottle of wine, and then exiting the store. There was nothing strange to report about that part of the night; there wasn't even anybody else on the store floor and Claudia had used the self checkout machine.

"Wait, wait, wait." They watched the black and white image on the screen as a second car pulled into the almost empty carpark, a large, blue van. It pulled up beside Claudia's car, on the drivers side. "She has to go to that side to get into her car." They watched the screen as Claudia came out. She, too, was obviously startled by the vans choice of parking space, since the entire rest of the car park was empty. She hesitated, pulled something out of her pocket and then kept walking towards her car. They watched when, as Claudia reached her drivers side door, the door of the van was thrown open and two men climbed out. Claudia held up the thing she had pulled out of her pocket. They saw that it was pepper spray when one of the men stumbled backwards, clawing at his face.

"Oh, my god." Emily put her hand to her mouth as she watched as the second man wrestled the can of spray out of Claudia's hand, turning it on the girl herself. She mimicked the actions of the first man, and the second man violently smacked the girl across the face. It wasn't a hit, it was a punch and, from the way Claudia's body crumpled to the ground, it wasn't a soft one, either.

"You didn't give this to the police station?" Hotch demanded, angrily. The security guard was white as a sheet, obviously affected by what he had just witnessed. He swallowed thickly, then shook his head, hanging it in shame. Hotch didn't have any words, or at least, none that were professional. He turned and stormed from the room. Emily followed, while Rossi told the security guard to make copies of the video for them to take back to the station.

"Hey," Emily called out to Hotch, grabbing his hand and pulling him to a stop. "Hey, are you alright?"

He wasn't. She could see that he wasn't. He was angry. Shaking his head, he took back his hand and raked it through his hair. "They didn't give the tapes...they didn't ask for them. What the hell kind of an operation are they running here, where they don't ask for the tapes?"

Emily was shaking her head. "No, Aaron, it's more than that. I know you and I know it's more than just the tapes. You _never_ lose it like that! What's wrong?"

He ran his hands over his face, then wen't still, looking at her. His breathing was the only sound, ragged and quick. She frowned at him, concerned, and when he spoke, it was measured and quiet. "The dark hair, pale skin, brown eyes. She looks like you, Emily. I can't stand that she looks like you."

Emily had noticed that too, but it wasn't the first time that had happened. It was unnerving, sure, but it came with the job. "We've all had victims that looked like us in the past, Hotch. It comes with the territory. And it's not like I'm their _type_ because victimology is all over the place with race, gender, all the rest of it. You need to calm down."

He was nodding like he understood her, but she didn't think he was really listening. This stemmed from more than just this case, she knew. It came from not living with her anymore, not being able to keep her safe 24/7. It was a control thing, as much as it was a love thing.

* * *

 **A/N** : Glad you guys still seem to be enjoying this! As for the songs;

1\. Love Will Remember: Selena Gomez

2\. She's come Undone: Guess Who

3\. Here We Go Again: Demi Lovato (There are a lot of artists who use this title, though.)

4\. Turbulence: Steve Aoki

5\. Ring Off: Bae-yonce, of course!

6\. If I Never See Your Face again: Maroon 5!

And, of course, the title is Tay Swizzle, which most people seemed to get! Anyway, here's chapter 7 for you all, loves!

S x


	8. Room to Breathe

**A/N:** This is a bit more of a dialogue led chapter, at least for the first part, anyway! Hope that's okay and hope you guys are still enjoying this, please leave me a review to let me know if you are. :)

S x

* * *

It was seven o'clock by the time they were on their way back to precinct. Today had been _long,_ but Emily guessed that was probably because she'd felt useless and groggy for half of it. The headache was slowly coming back, although she'd been told that her painkillers should work for a good six hours. They shouldn't be wearing off for a good hour. She turned her head away from Hotch, looking out of the window and squinting at the pain. It slowly subsided (it was coming in random bursts) and she looked towards the front again, to find Rossi watching her. He raised his eyebrows, questioningly, and she gave a minute shake of her head.

"Should we phone Ava? Or will she already be in bed?" Hotch suggested, from where he sat in the drivers seat. Emily pulled her phone out of back pocket and hit speed dial 2, for her mother. She still had, and supposed she always would have, Aaron as her number 1 on speed dial.

"Hello?" The voice of Elizabeth Prentiss came through the phone, on speaker. Aaron glanced down at the device, but his eyes went instantly back onto the road.

"Hey, mom," Emily greeted her mother, but it wasn't a greeting so much as the beginning of her question, "I know we said we'd phone earlier, I don't suppose there's any chance she's up at," She quickly worked out the time difference, "Ten o'clock?"

"Actually," Elizabeth said, and they could hear the high pitched tone of their daughters voice in the background. Emily was smiling down at the phone, as if Ava could see her, "Once I told her you'd be calling, she refused to go to bed. They always call, she was saying. So I told her she could stay up until half past ten, and if you hadn't called by then she simply had to sleep. Good timing, Emily."

There was some incoherent noise on the other end of the line while the phone exchanged hands, and then Ava's voice came through clear. "Momma, Daddy?"

"Hey, sweetheart," Aaron greeted her, smiling slightly as he drove.

"Hi, baby girl. Are you being good for Grandma?"

"I'm always good, mummy." That made her parents smile, not only because they knew it to be true, but because of the matter-of-fact quality to their young daughters voice. She somehow always managed to seem older than her six years. "Are you with anybody?"

"Uh, yeah, Uncle Dave is here."

"Hello, angel." Rossi said from the back of the car. "Are you practicing your italian?"

"Uh... _si._ " There was a question in Ava's voice that said she wasn't certain whether she had replied correctly. Rossi and Emily laughed.

"Well done, la mia bellezza!" He was smiling in the back of the car, Emily saw in the rear view window. She had always loved her team; she wouldn't have come back after everything that had happened with Doyle if she didn't love them. But, if it was possible, Emily thought that she loved them even more after Ava was born, after she saw the love that the team had for her daughter. Of course, she loved Henry and Luca, JJ's boys, and Penelope and Kevin's son, Jamie, so she had never doubted the teams affection for her daughter, but there was something about seeing the way she loved them, right back, something about their sweet little nicknames for her, that melted her heart. They truly were a family. That only reminded her, however, of how their own little family inside of the family was broken.

"Mummy, daddy, are you being nice to each other?"

That startled them both and they exchanged a look. Emily briefly glanced back at Rossi before she cleared her throat. Aaron, however, got there first.

"Mommy is being mean to me, sweetheart." He said, and Emily frowned, raising her knee on the chair so she could rest her elbow on it, while she held up the phone. She rolled her eyes at Aaron's smirk and reached out to swat at his arm as their daughters reply came through the phone.

"Mommy, don't be mean to daddy. Daddy, I know you're telling tales because mommy is always nice to me. But are you shouting at each other again? Because I don't think that's very nice of either of you."

There was a guilty silence in the air. Emily cleared her throat.

"Uh - no, Ava, we're not. We're working together, we're a team, remember? Mommy and Daddy only fight when they're at home."

"Who's home, mommy? Ours or daddy's?"

Goddammit. There it was, from the mouth of babes. Emily glanced at Rossi in the rear view mirror once more and, out of the corner of her eye, saw Hotch's eyes flicker up there, too. The Italian in the back of the car was staring out of the window now, as if he wasn't paying any attention at all to their conversation. Emily and Hotch met each others eyes in the mirror and Emily dropped her eyes almost instantly.

"Mommy?"

"I'm here, honey." Emily replied. "We were just phoning to make sure you and Grandma were alright, to tell you we love you and to wish you sweet dreams and good night."

"When will you be home?"

"We're not sure yet, sweetheart," Aaron told her. "We're trying to solve this case quickly, though, and rush home to you. We love you very much. Good night, Ava."

"Goodnight, daddy." The innocence that dripped like liquid gold from her daughters voice made Emily want to cry. "Goodnight, mommy."

"Good night, my little one. We'll come home to you as soon as we can, okay? And we'll phone you every night until we do. Give Grandma a kiss from me, tell her I had to go, okay?" Emily didn't think she could take getting into a conversation with her mother right now; she didn't have the energy or the time to have the wrestling match that it took to get Elizabeth off the phone.

"Okay, mommy. I love you, daddy. I love you, momma." Aaron and Emily repeated their love to Ava, who made kissing noises down the phone before hanging up on them. Slowly, Emily lowered her arm and put the phone onto the dashboard, where it rattled away quietly. She looked at Aaron again, who glanced at her before sighing and clearing his throat.

"Dave-"

"Aaron, what happens between a husband and wife is none of my business." He said, simply. Emily turned in her seat to glance at him, earning herself a wink from the older man. There had always been something fatherly about Rossi; she knew she could go to anyone on the team with any problem she might have, but Rossi was the one she would go to if she needed to feel comforted, after Hotch, of course. He had a soothing presence about him that she had always appreciated. She smiled back at him, and he turned, once again, to look out of the window.

More so than Morgan, even, they knew that Rossi would keep what he had heard to himself. They were both grateful for that.

* * *

That night, at the hotel, the team decided to go down the restaurant for dinner. They were all tired and they were all famished. Most of the meal was devoured in silence; there was an unspoken rule around the dinner table that there would be no mention of the case. It was difficult, when they were in the middle of it, when they knew that everyone else around the table was going through the details in their own head, but it hardly made for light dinner conversation, to discuss the in and outs of a murder investigation. Especially one as brutal as the one they were dealing with right now.

"Oh," JJ said, as if she had forgotten, when they all looked at her expectantly. She produced an envelope from her bag, containing all of their room keys. "The bags were taken up earlier today. Sorry, I didn't get a chance to hand these out yet."

She gave out the keys, one to everybody except Hotch. When he looked slightly confused, Emily kicked him beneath the table and set _their_ key between them. It had seemed ridiculous, after they got married, for them to continue sleeping separately, or bunking with JJ and Rossi, when on cases. So it had become ordinary procedure for them to share a double room. This, Emily mused, would be the ideal time to explain their situation to the team. Rossi and Reid might have some awareness of what was going on between them, but so far Morgan was the only one who knew any details. She knew, however, that they needed to decide together what they were going to tell everyone. They probably had very different ideas about why their relationship hadn't been working, and it just wouldn't do to get into an argument about that in the middle of the dining room, so they both stayed quiet.

Still, that didn't mean it wasn't going to be awkward for them.

* * *

Standing in the middle of their room for the night, Hotch could hear the shower running in the bathroom. He and Emily hadn't said two words to each other on the walk up to the room and as soon as they'd come in, she'd mumbled something about a shower, grabbed her bag and disappeared into the bathroom. Now, he was standing there, in the middle of the room, with the bed, which looked abnormally large for a double, staring at him. There was a sofa near the window, but it was a small one. Too small for either of them to sleep comfortably on it.

 _This is ridiculous._ He thought to himself, moving to sit down on the sofa. He hitched up his trousers before taking the seat, resting his elbows on his knees and clasping his hands together. Regardless of their personal situation, they were two grown adults who could have an adult conversation about the circumstances and then share a bed without it being awkward.

Awkward, though, wasn't quite the word, he mused. It was more like excruciating. He ran his hand through his already mussed up dark hair. It was his nervous tick, he knew. It was frustrating to know your own tells, but not to be aware of them until after the fact. How was he supposed to feel about spending the night with her? It was such an odd situation. An awful situation. He had put them into this position, he knew. It wasn't as if he had done it on purpose, though. They were nearing the ten year mark of their relationship. Not of their marriage, but of their relationship. He and Haley had been coming up for ten years when everything had started to go wrong and it had agonized him to think the same thing might happen with him and Emily. There was just something so different about their relationship; the dynamic was the complete opposite to how it had been with Haley. But he had messed it up in exactly the same way.

Looking back, there wasn't a lot of logic in his decisions. For a logical person, the choice he had made to start spending more time at the Bureau, to give Emily the space he thought she would appreciate, had in fact, driven them apart. It had been his decision to put a little bit of space between them, although that had been the last thing he ever wanted, that had started their downwards spiral. And now everything was out of control, and he had no idea of how to fix it.

The bathroom door opened in the middle of his contemplations and he looked up to see Emily walking out, looking fresh and damp and lovely. She was dressed simply in a pair of grey sweatpants that, with a twinge, he realized had been his, once upon a time, and a white vest top. It appeared as if she, too, had noticed that they had been his, because she put her hands into the pockets and rocked on her heels.

"They always did look better on you." He told her, with a slight smile. She smiled down at her feet; it wasn't quite back at him, but it was good enough.

When she looked up at him, it was with tired eyes. "When do you want to tell them? And what do you want to tell them?"

He hadn't thought about what they were going to tell their team. As he pondered, he twisted his wedding band around his finger. It was an old habit that she used to tell him off for. Now, she was enjoying the sight, in a kind of torturous way; it was painful to see that he was still wearing his band. She had taken it off as soon as he had walked out of their front door. From that moment, it had felt as though the metal was scalding her skin. The ring had been put away, along with their wedding photograph. It was strange how she had gotten rid of those things, the obvious things, yet the items that held possibly even more sentimental value, such as the sweatpants he had given her, or the t-shirt he had left behind that still smelled like him, gave her nothing but comfort. Well, not _nothing_ but comfort; they still tugged on her heartstrings, she still had to steady herself whenever she smelled him on her clothes.

His smell was affecting her, right now. It was almost as if she wasn't allowed to smell him anymore. There was something too intimate about it, which, of course, she knew was ridiculous.

"I don't suppose we have to tell them anything, really. Only that we've separated." Emily was already shaking her head. She sat on the bed, folding one leg beneath her and letting the other trail on the floor. Looking over her shoulder at him, she shrugged.

"I can't do that, Hotch. They're our friends, not just the people we work with. They're family. They deserve, and they're going to expect, some sort of explanation. And would you rather that came from you and I, or from Derek?"

She had a point, he had to admit. He stood up, tired from the long day and tired of having to raise his voice to talk to her from across the room, and moved to sit beside her on the bed. The fact that he could see her tense up as he sat down killed him, but he didn't comment on it.

"Tell them," He said, in a much softer voice, and with a sigh, "That I started being distant. That we grew apart because of my actions and that it simply became...too difficult. Tell them that..." He took a deep breath, and she could hear it shake. He cleared his throat. "Tell them that we still love each other, but that, in the long run, it's going to be better for everyone this way."

The softness and pure emotion of his words gave her goosebumps. She couldn't look at him, but looked down at her own hands in her lap, as she picked at her nails. He reached over and took one of her hands in his, stopping her from savaging them and causing the pain he knew she always did when she was stressed. Tiny dark patches appeared on the sweatpants, where her tears fell. She shook her head. She didn't have the words she needed right now. She didn't know what she would say, if the words came too her; there didn't seem to be anything she could say, and Emily squeezed his hand.

"Aaron," She said, looking up. Her words never made it out. He was looking at her with such...such raw emotion on his eyes that she found the words floating right out of her head.

"I do love you, Emily. I always will." The hand holding hers let go and came up to push the damp hair back from her face. He pressed his palm to her cheek, a soft gesture of affection that most people would find uncharacteristic of the hardened, stern Agent Aaron Hotchner. Not Emily, though. She had become accustomed to his softer side, to his loving, affectionate side. That was the thing she had missed the most; his candid shows of emotion. She pushed her face into his hand as his thumb wiped away a stray tear.

His hand moved to the back of her head and, just like that, she was kissing him. There was nothing new about it. There were no fire works. There was just a warm burning in her chest, an intense burst of emotion in her mind. He couldn't believe she was kissing him again, had thought she never would again. _God_ , he had missed her. They kissed for what felt like forever, before, finally, they both had to breathe again. Begrudgingly, he pulled away, pressing his forehead to hers. Her hands came up to brush against the lapels of his jacket. She traced the lining, softly, slowly. Then she started to push the jacket off his shoulders.

Aaron looked at her in surprise, but there was a fire in her eyes, which shone, wet with still unshed tears, that he hadn't seen in weeks. He didn't have time to ask if she was sure, before she was kissing him again, their tongues effortlessly finding the steps in a dance they had known for years.

Even as they kissed, though, even as they undressed, even as he loved her as he knew she wanted to be loved, something inside of Emily didn't feel right. Something was weeping. This didn't feel like a reunion; it felt like a goodbye.


	9. Breakfast Funtimes

The following morning, Emily woke before Aaron, but only because she'd barely slept. Usually Aaron was the one dragging her out of bed, but this time it was her detangling herself from his embrace. He didn't stir. That, she knew, was because he hadn't been sleeping. Guilt stabbed at her when she realised the only reason he had slept well last night was because she was there. She hadn't slept any better than she did when she was without him. If anything, she'd slept worse because she was taking everything in. The way he held her, the way he smelled, the rhythm of his breathing. She needed it all for her memory.

Leaving before he woke up was a cowardly move, but it felt necessary. Emily didn't know what last night had meant to him, but for her it didn't change anything. They were both adults now and one night of bliss and pretending that they didn't have any problems didn't change the fact that their marriage had broken down. Emily was a realist, and she knew that they couldn't rebuild their marriage based on one night of sex. Not matter how good the sex may or may not have been. She dressed quickly and quietly in the bathroom and when she came out, Hotch hadn't moved from where she had left him, sleeping soundly, snoring softly. She left the key on the dresser, along with his sweatpants.

Reception was open and being manned, which Emily was grateful for. There was a pretty receptionist at the desk; blonde, leggy, all smiles and giggles. She was exactly Morgans type, which was probably the reason he was up at this time and leaning over the desk, chatting away to her. Whatever he was saying, judging by the blush on the blonde's face, Emily doubted it was for her ears so she made sure not to tread lightly as she made her way over, so that her heels announced her arrival before her voice did. Morgan looked around as he heard her approaching, his eyes scanning her obviously rushed appearance and travelling down to the go bag in her hand.

"Nice night?" He asked her, with an unimpressed expression, looking pointedly at the bag. She ignored him and turned to the receptionist.

"Hi, can I get a room? I'm not sure how many nights we'll be here, so if I can open an account and pay when we leave, that would be great." The blonde smiled and turned to her computer, beginning to type quickly.

"You've got to be kidding me. Emily, you can't even sleep in the same bed together? What the hell is wrong with the two of you?" She was still ignoring him, digging around in her bag for her purse and her badge. She produced both and gave them to the receptionist for her to add to the system. "Do you not think you're overreacting a little?"

"Would you excuse us for just a minute?" Emily asked the girl, who nodded, looking confusedly between the two of them. "Thank you." Emily grabbed Morgan by his upper arm, like a mother leading a misbehaving child, and pulled him over to the seating area of the lobby. "Let's get this straight right here, right now, Morgan. You are one of my closest friends, I trust you with my life, but you do not get a say in what is going on between me and Aaron. Do you understand me?"

"Whoa, princess. Who are you talking to? I am not Ava." Morgan said, a serious expression on his face. "I am just trying to look out for the two of you and from the state of you the other night-"

"I don't need you looking out for me!" Emily said, her emotions getting the better of her, her voice louder this time. She could see a few people in her peripheral vision turn to see what was going on but she ignored them. "I appreciate it, but I do not need it. Hotch and I, we're grown ups. We don't need you acting like a marriage counselor and I _do not_ need you shouting about the flaws in my marriage in front of your next goddamn conquest." She was pointing back at the receptionist.

Now Morgan looked pissed. He had his hands on his hips and wasn't looking at her. He was looking over her shoulder, like she wasn't even there. "You know what, Emily. That's fine." It wasn't fine, she could tell by his voice that it wasn't fine, but she was in too fragile a state to humor him right now. "You deal with you, Prentiss."

The use of her surname was a low blow. He only ever used that when they were working, and right in this second, they weren't. That was the last thing he said to her before he stalked off across the lobby and towards the elevator. She was left standing there, with the few people who were present looking at her, curiously. She turned towards the large windows beside them, looking out at the rain that was hammering down. It had been raining all night, it seemed. Straightening her jacket, she took in a shaky breath and made her way back over to the desk, where the receptionist was ready with her key. She looked like she wanted to say something, but was weighing up whether that was a good or bad idea. Finally, she spoke in a quiet voice.

"Are you okay, agent?" All Emily could do was nod as she put her badge and purse back into her bag and thanked the girl for her key, before she made her way back to the elevator and up to her single-bedded room.

* * *

Breakfast was much quieter than usual. As JJ sat down, she looked around at the team. Garcia wasn't there, she had gone to the precinct early to see if she could get any details from the gritty footage they had acquired from the CCTV camera. If she had been there with them, at the breakfast table, JJ was ready to bet that the rest of the team wouldn't look as miserable as they did right now.

"Is everyone okay?" She asked, setting her plate of eggs down and taking her seat between Reid and Rossi. There was a murmur of affirmation around the table, but that didn't convince her. She cleared her throat, asking again, louder this time. "Is everyone okay?"

"JJ, we're just tired." Morgan replied. JJ wasn't buying that. They were always tired when they worked a case, with their 7am sharp starts, but they were _never_ this quiet. Hotch was staring into his cup of coffee, his plate of food in front of him and untouched. Morgan wasn't looking at anything in particular. Rossi was reading case notes and Reid was just eating. He shrugged at her when she looked at him, questioningly.

"OK, I'll try this. Where's Emily?"

The air across the table from her, where Hotch and Morgan were sitting, changed dramatically. Hotch looked up at her, his eyes darting to the doorway like he thought JJ had just announced her entrance, then he heaved a great sigh and went back to staring into his drink. Morgan's frown got even deeper, if that was possible, and he folded his arms across his chest, shrugging at her as Spencer had just done.

"I think she might have gone to the station with Garcia." Rossi told her, not looking up from the file, as he turned the page.

"You think wrong." A voice said from behind them, as Emily walked up to their table, a cup of tea in her hands. She had cut coffee out of her diet years ago, back when she went to Paris for a few months. Nowadays, they spoke about it like it was a vacation; it was difficult for them all to remember that time, when JJ and Hotch had allowed the rest of them to believe Emily was dead, and for all Emily had known, any of her team could have been. Yeah, Morgan had hit that one on the head, it had been seven months of hell for them all.

She hovered for a moment, as though indecisive about whether she should sit down, which was odd since both JJ and Spencer were still eating, before she seemed to give in and she took the only available seat; between Morgan and Hotch.

"Goodmorning." The latter greeted her, flatly. She glanced at him, trying to read his tone. He wasn't happy, that much was certain.

"Morning." She replied, quietly.

JJ was looking at them like she was confused and Emily decided she needed to change the subject. "I guess nobody had any breakthroughs about the case last night? Hm? Reid?"

"Unfortunately, No." The genius said, "Our unsubs are obviously a collected group; they're meticulous, they're fast when they strike. They're not shy, either, taking Claudia from the carpark of a well lit store. It doesn't make sense why they would abandon the bodies in a manner that seems to rushed. Obviously they have no regard for their victims, but there was no sexual element, so that's not why they're taking them in the first place. It's making no sense to me."

Emily was going to agree with what Reid was saying, although she had little to add, but before she had a chance to speak, another voice entered their conversation.

"The whole gang is here, huh?" Mick Rawson. Of course. "Emily, you didn't tell me you guys were staying here; we're all up on the 9th floor!"

"You didn't mention that you'd seen him." Aaron said, from beside her, in a tone that was almost accusatory. She was saved from replying in front of the team by Rossi, and she was eternally grateful.

"Rawson. Good to see you. Not good circumstances, but in our line of work-"

"They rarely are." The Britt finished. "You got that right, man. You guys had any luck on your case? Pretty girl here didn't tell me what it's all about, but when you guys are involved, it can only be something gruesome and creepy, right?"

"Those are the words for it." Reid said, in an almost disapproving voice. Rawson was talking very crudely about their work; gruesome and creepy were words Reid would use to describe a crime scene and an unsub. They weren't words he would use to describe his career, and he, and the others, didn't take kindly to Rawson trivializing what they did.

"We can't discuss the case, Rawson. As an agent, you know that." Aaron said, getting to his feet. Emily had to refrain from rolling her eyes; classic alpha male behaviour. It was so ironic how someone like Hotch could know so much about behaviour, yet he couldn't refrain from the exact same tells as someone without a clue. Rawson didn't reply for a moment, clearly sizing up Hotch's behaviour. Then his face broke into a jovial smile and he held up his hands.

"No worries, sir, eh?" He said, before glancing around at the team. "Listen, it was nice to see you guys but I better get back to the Red Cell." His eyes found Emily and stayed there. Only briefly, but long enough that it was too long. "I'll see you around, sometime." He said it like he meant it to everyone, but she knew it was aimed at her. The blush that crept up her cheeks was involuntary and she so wanted it to be unwelcome. She had to smile back at him, out of politeness, but she hated that she could see Aaron, and the rest of them, looking at her as she did so.

There was silence after Rawson had left them, the only sounds were that of JJ and Reid finishing their breakfasts. No sooner had JJ taken her last mouthful when Morgan's phone rang.

"Hey, mama." He spoke into the phone, letting them all know who it was. "Baby, you do have some impeccable timing, you know that? You're the best." He hung up the phone and stood up, speaking to them as a group. "We've got a licence place, and you'll never guess who it's registered too."

* * *

 **A/N:** Okay, so I may have given up on the whole 'chapters named after song titles' thing, so sue me ;D

S x


	10. Bad Cop

**A/N:** So it's been brought to my attention that some people might not like to continue reading the story because of the presence of one Mick Rawson. This makes me sad because I don't hate Mick (I'm a Brit, so he tugs on those home strings of mine.) and I think he makes a great antagonist in Hotchniss stories. I felt like the story needed a personal antagonist, as well as the Unsubs' - note the plural, because even as our case draws to a close, our story doesn't.

Sorry to everyone who doesn't like Mick - he's likely to play an antagonists role in other Hotchniss fics I write. I actually have one planned for after this one is finished, already. Hope it doesn't put too many people off! :(

 _S_ x

* * *

"Good morning, my lovelies." Garcia said, as the team walked into their designated room in the precinct. "You can all thank me in a minute, once I pull this up," An image from the CCTV footage of Claudia's abduction popped up on the screen, but it was much clearer. So clear, in fact, that they could make out the registration on the car. "That van, prepare to have your minds blown, belongs to one Caspar Finch, Uncle of, do I have any guesses?"

"Finch, as in Jason Finch." JJ said, rolling her eyes as if she should have known it all along.

"Ding, ding, ding. Goldilocks is the winner." Garcia said, turning on her chair to look at the rest of them.

"I can't believe we interviewed him and we ruled him off."

Spencer was looking at the board, where they had images of their other victims, as well as Claudia. Finch's name was up there, crossed off, under the heading 'Potential Suspects'. Spencer wiped it out, then rewrote it, minus the strike through. "His eyes." He mumbled. "His eyes were red."

"Yeah, so?" Morgan prompted.

"We saw Claudia spray something on the CCTV footage. If you get sprayed with pepper spray and you don't treat it immediately, it can lead to permanent damage that flares up every now and then, especially if you wear contacts. We thought Finch's eyes were red because he'd been upset about the news of Claudia's death, but it could have been because it was him on that video. Claudia sprayed him with the pepper spray."

"I want him brought in for further questioning. Prentiss, Reid, go bring him in."

Emily just nodded and walked out of the room, with Reid in tow, when Hotch gave the order. She didn't want to be hurt by the fact that he was sending her out; he had to send somebody, why not her? It wasn't as if he had sent her alone. But she knew that he wasn't just giving her this job because it had to go to somebody. He was giving her this job so he didn't have to see her for a little while. He didn't want to he around her. She couldn't exactly blame him, the way she had run out on him that morning. If anything, she knew she deserved it but it still hurt. _About as much as you hurt him, when he woke up alone this morning._ Emily couldn't deny that the voice in her head had a point.

In the car, she started the engine and felt Reid's eyes on her. Glancing at him, she saw that he wasn't looking at her, but at her hand, once again. She flexed her fingers and he looked at her face. Smiling at him, gently, he smiled back. There was something sad about it and she felt an ache in her heart. Reid didn't deal well with change, and she could see that he was worried about her, about them. His personality, his politeness and his propriety had kept him from saying anything and as Emily pulled the car out of the car park, she cleared her throat, preparing to explain to him.

"Emily-" He tried to interrupt, but she knew what he was going to say.

"No, Reid. It's okay, really." She reassured him. He dissolved into silence, looking down at his own hands in his lap. There was, and always had been, an innocence about the youngest member of their team that had always remained. It didn't matter how old they all got or how much time they spent together, Reid would always be the baby and they all would, in one way or another, handle him with kid gloves.

"Hotch and I...we were having trouble." She didn't know how to explain this to him. She felt like she was explaining it to Ava again. "We are not living together at the minute. He's found an apartment, he's having Ava at the weekends. We're not going to let it affect us, professionally. But-" She was about to say the words out lout for the first time, and her mouth was suddenly as dry as the Sahara, "I think my marriage is over."

She said it to herself, more than she said it to Reid. They were stopped at a light and, staring out at the road ahead of them, Emily's eyes were unfocused, wide and glossed over. Her mouth was open, as if she had frozen on the last syllable. Something about saying it out loud like that was like setting it in stone. It was like someone had woken her from a trance; this was her reality now. She and Hotch were over. They were going to file for a divorce, she was going to sign the papers and they were both going to acknowledge that they were now free. _Free_ hardly felt like the right word, but that was the only way people ever seemed to describe it.

"My marriage is over." It was like a tragic, horrific, miserable mantra.

Reid didn't say anything for a minute. He didn't even nudge her to move when the lights went green. There was nobody behind them, so there were no other cars rushing her. Emily felt as though a wave had just crashed over her, as though she'd just been dunked into a bath of ice water. Finally, she shook her head, bringing herself back to reality.

"Sorry." She mumbled, pulling away from the lights. They spent the rest of the drive in silence.

* * *

"Why am I here?"

The usual demand. JJ looked across the table at Finch with as gentle an expression as she could manage. Usually, when they felt they could disarm an suspect by using a female presence, they sent in Emily. Today, however, Hotch had decided that since JJ was already acquainted with Finch, she should be the one to go in.

"We found something a little alarming, when we looked at the CCTV footage from the convenience store, the night Claudia was abducted." She lifted the laptop screen and played the video to him, watching his reactions carefully as she did so.

His expression changed slowly, then all at once. It went from surprised to panicked to unnervingly calm. JJ could see that he had closed off; it would be difficult for her to get any information out of him now. She had two tactics to choose from; she either needed to be understanding, soft spoken, reassuring, or she needed to be angry and push him to the point where he exposed the truth out of anger. It took her a moment to decide how to do this. He wasn't looking at her, but off at the wall. With a sigh, JJ stood up, taking the laptop with her and exiting the room.

"Hotch, I think we need to play him. Cliche, good-cop, bad-cop style."

The unit chief was nodding, as though he had come to the same conclusion while he watched. He turned to Emily, who was silent beside him. They didn't need words. She nodded and followed JJ back into the room. JJ grabbed a bottle of water from the side as she went in.

They had done this routing a million times before; they knew it backwards, upside down, sideways. JJ sat down in front of Finch and set the bottle of water in front of him, with a small smile. The seemingly compassionate gesture, which was really just a ruse to make it clear that JJ was the _nice_ one, would establish a thin layer of trust between the blonde and their suspect. He eyed it warily, but then decided that, since they were cops, they probably weren't going to drug him. Emily stood up, near the door, with her feet apart and her arms folded across her chest. It was a stance that made her look bigger than she was, and as intimidating as the pretty brunette could possibly look.

He picked up the bottle, unscrewing it and gulping back at least half of it. He was looking at Emily, a wary expression on his face. She raised her eyebrows.

"Dehydration. One of the fast acting symptoms of stress." Walking over to the table, she rested her hands on it, slowly leaning down so she was closer to his level. "What are you so stressed about, Jason?"

"You drag me in here like I'm some kind of criminal and then expect me not to be stressed?" He asked, incredulously. JJ looked at Emily with a gesture that seemed to say _he has a point_ and Emily rolled her eyes, standing up once more and removing the jacket of her shirt. Her gun belt was clearly visible and they both watched as Jason eyed it. He swallowed, visibly, and began peeling the label off his bottle.

"No, of course not," JJ was saying, softly, playing on the good-cop routine. "We're sorry they treated you lik-"

"Do you wear contacts, Jason?" Emily went straight in for the kill, cutting across JJ, who glanced up at her with an almost intimidated expression. It was all part of the act. The boy was rubbing his wrists, the memory of the cuffs playing on his mind, fainting over his skin, and looked slightly confused, but nodded. She smiled down at him; it made him uneasy, she could see. It wasn't a genuine smile, or a warm smile, like JJ's. It was a cold, calculating, predatory smile.

She sat down, slowly; his eyes didn't move from hers as she did so. Like prey, staring at the danger, not wanting to take his eyes from her, lest she attack.

"Did you know, Jason, that if somebody sprays you in the eyes with pepper spray or mace, and you're wearing contact lenses, that if you don't take them out immediately and get medical attention, you can permanently damage your eyes and your vision? In fact, recurring irritation can occur. It causes inflammation around the eyes; redness and irritation."

Automatically, Jason's hands went to his eyes. He rubbed them; JJ and Emily took the moment to exchange a glance. They didn't quite have him yet, but they weren't far off. So far, they had nothing to pin down Jason, but Morgan and Reid had been dispatched to bring in his Uncle, so once they had them both, they should get a break in the case. Until then, though, Emily knew they had to play the dirty games that Hotch didn't like.

"Your Uncle already gave the game away." She said. JJ glanced at her; there was nothing telling in her expression, but Emily knew it was a question and a warning all at once. She had her hands folded in front of her and tossed her hair out of her face as Jason looked up from his hands. There was real fear in his red ringed eyes, they flitted from one agent to the other, manic.

"That bastard!" He cursed, slamming his fist down on the table. "It was all his fucking idea! He was the one who wanted to get involved in them, he was the one who suggested we use that to get rid of her!"

The _them_ and _that_ threw JJ and Emily off. Who they were, they didn't know. They stood up simultaneously, not needing words to be in sync, and exited the room. Emily picked up the bottle of water as they went out.

As they walked out of the room, Emily was met by Hotch's classic glare. She halted, the door closing behind her. JJ stepped around their boss, getting out of the line of fire. With his arms folded across his chest, his brow furrowed and his face only inches from hers, he looked intimidating. She cleared her throat and put a hand on his chest, applying just the right amount of pressure to push him back a few steps.

"I know what I did in there was-"

"Stupid." He offered. "Irrational. Idiotic. Detrimental to the case. Take your pick, Emily."

"I know, Hotch, but we needed to break him and _quickly,_ we don't know how many people people they have!" She defended herself, her voice rising. Her neck burned; embarrassment was making itself known as a flush rose through to her cheeks. The whole team was there. Evidently, Morgan and Reid had returned from picking up Caspar Finch.

"Lying to suspects is unethical and it puts this entire operation in jeopardy. You'd better hope we find the evidence we need to send them down, regardless of your slip up in there. You've been here for fifteen years," He reprimanded and she looked at him with steady, pained eyes. "I expect better from you. I'm taking you off this investigation; go back to the hotel."

Outrage shot through Emily like a white hot arrow. Her eyes widened as he turned away from her to leave the room. She dropped the arms she had folded across her chest and lurched forwards. "Hotch, you're kidding me? You can't take me off this investigation. We need the entire team to break it-"

"You're done, Prentiss."

His tone was final and it was with angry tears in her eyes that she fled the room, a glance around at her fellow team mates telling her that they either knew there was nothing they could do, or they knew Hotch to be right.


	11. Breakthrough

Almost fifteen years. _Fifteen years_ and she hadn't been forcible taken off a case. With the exception of Matthews murder, but that was completely different circumstances and Hotch hadn't removed her, he had removed the entire team. Not that she and Rossi had listened, but Hotch's intention was there. Anger washed over her in waves as she paced her hotel room, running her fingers through her hair, putting her hands on her hips, muttering and cursing under her breath. She had done something reckless, she knew, but Hotch was way out of line. Reprimanding her like that in front of the team, pulling her from the case after she had actually gotten their suspect to talk. That wasn't a professional decision, the irrational part of her mind was saying, that was personal. He'd been waiting for a reason to reprimand her all day, an opportunity to take out his frustrations on her for her actions of that morning.

"Dammit." Emily cursed, kicking at the bedpost out of frustration. As it turned out, the thing was made of solid wood so the only result of that action was a sore foot. Limping over to her bed, Emily lay down on the mattress which - this could have been her mind making it up - she could have sworn wasn't half as comfortable as the bed she had shared with her husband the night before.

 _Ex-husband._ That irritating little voice in her head, which sounded disturbingly like her mother, reminded her.

 _Not yet._ The, occasionally even more annoying voice, of hope whispered from somewhere in the recesses of her mind. Emily scoffed, aloud. She was definitely divorcing him after today, after he had made such a show of her. She had never felt so humiliated. Well...that was a bit of a stretch, but she'd never felt so humiliated by one of her team members. Least of all by Hotch.

Her thoughts refused to stop whirring around in her head, so she got up. If Hotch had taken her off the case, that meant she had no reason not to let loose a little bit. Resigning herself to the rebellious act of going to get a double vodka-soda from the bar, she grabbed her handbag and stalked from the room.

Everyone she passed on her way down to the bar regarded her with a wary expression. No doubt she looked terrifying. She wasn't in any mood to act pleasant, so there was that; the fact that she was stalking around so heavily that her heeled boots announced her presence about five minutes before she turned each corner didn't help. Nor, she assumed, did the pursed lips and the fact that her eyes were hidden behind sunglasses. She had no use for them, but she didn't want anybody to meet her eyes and think it acceptable to make small talk. Ordinarily, Emily was a thoroughly pleasant and polite person, but now she wasn't in the mood for pleasantries. She wanted to be left alone to her anger and her hateful thoughts of Hotch.

OK, maybe not hateful. But they were most certainly not pleasant thoughts. Unless you counted the memories from last night that crept in every now and then when she felt a muscle twinge or nudged the tender bruises his lips had left on her body. They had a rule about hickeys and exposed skin. Basically, anything anybody else would see was a major no-go area. It had been that way since they'd first started dating and Emily had come in with several on her neck and chest; Morgan hadn't let it go for months. He'd had an absolute field day teasing her, and the others had had their fair share of fun with it, too. To be fair, she probably shouldn't have worn the top she did at the time. But that was wholly besides the point.

"Vodka soda, please." Emily said to the barman as she sat down. "Make it a double. On the rocks."

He set the drink down in front of her and held out his hand for the case. With a sickly sweet smile, Emily produced her FBI badge. It was a cheap trick, but there were few places that would deny a free drink to a federal agent. She was in the kind of mood where, for the rest of the day, she required things to go her way or she was going to snap. Big time.

"Somebody got kicked to the curb, huh?"

Exactly what she needed right now. With a roll of her brown eyes, she shoved her sunglasses on top of her head and swiveled her stool around.

"You're not done here, yet?" Her greeting was somewhat less polite than usual, but she couldn't have cared less in that moment. Rawsons' expression told her that he wasn't expecting that response from her and there was a tiny, pathetic pang of smugness inside of her.

"Unfortunately not. But believe me, I'm so ready to be done here." He said, in his classic British accent that she had somehow come to associate solely with Mick Rawson. Emily turned back to the bar with a wry smile. She didn't want this conversation right now. She didn't want any conversation right now.

 _But,_ the voice of her mother said in her head, _If you're going to have a conversation with anybody, let it be with somebody who gets Aaron's blood boiling with jealousy._

That much was painfully and embarrassingly true. Emily had, unfairly and on infrequent occasions, used Rawson as a tool to force Aaron to get a little creative in the bedroom. That wasn't an insult to Aaron at all. Things there were _more_ than satisfactory, and, once upon a time, they had been mind blowing - fireworks, volcanic eruptions. After ten years of a relationship, however, occasionally he needed a little kick start to ride the way she wanted and when Emily was feeling like she didn't particularly want to be treated like a china doll, she would throw in a little comment about how she sometimes wished she'd let Rawson ravish her. Hotch knew her game; he knew that she knew that had been jealous all those years ago, with the Brit flirting with her, and he knew that she knew that saying those things would rile him up. It wasn't quite hate sex, but it was hot enough to pass as it. And Hotch played it just as dirty. To this day, Emily couldn't stand the thought of him with _Beth._

Rawson sat down at the bar next to her. Her vodka remained untouched as it would for the rest of the evening; if they broke the case, Emily knew Hotch would call her in and she wouldn't risk clouding her mind, just in case that did happen. "Scotch, on the rocks, please."

"What _are_ you doing here, then?" He looked at her like he was a little concerned about why she was asking that and she waved a hand, clarifying. "Here in the hotel, not here in California."

"Oh," He smirked. "I thought I was gonna have to cut you off then." He nodded at the untouched drink and she put a smile on her face. Fake as it was, he didn't seem to notice. "I kind of pissed Cooper off. Made some comments I probably shouldn't have, but we're all just frustrated that we haven't gotten a break in this case. We have nothing."

"What makes you guys think there's a trafficking ring? In California, of all places?"

"We broke a case down south and found a freezer full of body parts. Those that we could find DNA matches for all came from Cali. Whole mix of people in there, too. Victimology was all over the show. Wha-Why are you looking at me like that?"

Emily was staring at him, wide-eyed. When she'd seen him, she'd made a comment or had a thought, at least, about how odd it was that the FBI had two teams working in California, both in Mariposa. How unlucky it was. She hadn't even considered that their cases could be related - as far as she was aware, none of them had. How could they have been so dim?

"Come on," She said, grabbing her bag from the bar. "We've got to go."

He glanced at his untouched beverage before letting out a groan and getting to his feet, following her out of the hotel. "Emily, you really think our case is your case?"

"We found five mutilated bodies. All Californians. All missing limbs." She told him, as she climbed into the SUV she had hijacked from the station. "I can't believe they didn't put this together at Quantico - who is working case files at that place?"

* * *

She ran into the room where the rest of the team was talking, out of breath and sweating slightly. They all looked at her with shocked expressions.

"Emily?" Hotch was confused at first, then concerned. "What are you doing here? Is it Ava?"

She was shaking her head no as Rawson came into the room behind her. Hotch's face lost it's concern and went back to stoic. He raised his eyebrows, unimpressed and questioning.

"They're here working a trafficking case." Emily explained to the team. "They broke a trafficking case down in Arizona and found a freezer full of body parts." The team exchanged looks of shock, but she wasn't done. "They ran DNA tests on the limbs and guess what? All Californians, all unsolved missing persons cases and no ring leader or murder site. We don't have two cases here, Hotch. This is one big case, and it's bigger than just a gang. It's a trafficking ring and they're trafficking human body parts.

* * *

"Where is it?" Morgan demanded as he and Rossi walked into the interrogation room where Caspar Finch sat. His pale face was a lot more impassive than his nephews; his expression was one of cool smugness. He was, they could all tell, ready to lawyer-up at any time, and he knew he could do it. His eyebrows did go up, however, at Morgans question, as if to say, ' _Where's what?'_. "The warehouse, you smug son of a bitch. The freezer. You gotta be keeping the body parts here in Mariposa somewhere before you move them across state lines now where are they?"

"You're going down, regardless of whether you tell us this or not," Rossi explained. "We have proof that it was you and your nephew who abducted Claudia Lewis; not only was it your vehicle but we've been able to match both of your heights to two of the abductors that night. It might not be concrete, but it's enough for us and it's enough for a judge. You're guilty, you bastard, now tell us where the rest of your buddies are so you can at least take them down with you."

At that moment, Garcia's voice came through loud and clear into everyone's headsets.

"We don't need anything from him, guys. It took me a while but I pulled up road camera footage and tracked the van from the convenience store as far as it would go. I lost them off the Golden Chain highway. There's only one turn off between the cameras where I lost them; it heads down towards a vineyard which, I discovered after hacking into some locked up files, belongs to Caspar Finch's late father-in-law."

They were already on their way out of the room and heading towards the car park, stopping only to grab their vests and extra ammo.

They piled into the vehicles and, automatically, Emily slipped into Hotch's passenger seat. He looked at her, as JJ, Rossi and Reid climbed into the back of their SUV, and she nodded as he started the car.

"I know, I disobeyed a direct order. I'm sorry but I really think that-"

"Thank you." He cut across her, unceremoniously. She looked at him in surprise. "Thank you, for disobeying me."

He turned his eyes to the road ahead as he pulled out of the car park and began the drive. The others in the back were quiet. Emily nodded at him and finally dragged her eyes away from his silhouette; his eyes were planted firmly on the road ahead. She put her fingers to her lips, biting at the nails out of habit. One of his hands lifted from the wheel and, without even looking at her, he pulled at her wrist to tug her hand away and gripped it in his own.

Not knowing what they were about to walk into, that was comforting. She squeezed.


	12. Case: Conclusive

It was early afternoon as they piled out of the cars, into the rain that had started again, and headed towards the vineyards storehouse. They'd sent the team of police officers into the house with Rossi and Reid, as well as Cooper and . The endless rows of vines looked almost sinister; god knew how many bodies had been buried under there, if this was the large operation they thought it to be. Prophet, LaSalle and Rawson had come with them once they had established that it was much more likely that they were using the storehouse to house the victims and the bodies, rather than the main house.

They approached in their usual formation; Morgan and Hotch went first, with Emily and JJ covering them from behind. The Red Cell came in behind them, something Emily had seen LaSalle roll her eyes about. She hadn't liked that girl years ago, and she wasn't her biggest fan right now. It felt like they were fighting for footing; the wind was coming strong and unyielding. The hurricane was letting it be known that she had been there. Hotch halted them at the door and gestured for Morgan to go first. The agent nodded and braced himself, before doing his classic door trick. One kick to the side with the handle was enough and the door swung in on it's hinges.

"FBI!" The chorus rang out from each of them as they entered the giant storehouse. On the way over, Garcia had explained that this was one of the largest outside of Napa Valley. Inside the storehouse, it was clear that she hadn't exaggerated. The ceilings rose high around them and in the middle there were stacks upon stacks of bottled wines. Around the edges of the building there were giant barrels that were obviously used for storing the wine before it was bottled. They scouted the building before letting the officers outside know that it was clear. The dogs on the leashes were going wild; there was definitely something here worth finding.

As soon as they let the dogs into the building, they were moving from barrel to barrel, barking like crazy. Emily felt her stomach and she saw her nausea replicated on many of the faces in their group. They were keeping the body parts they hadn't discarded in the barrels. Emily shook her head, putting a hand to her forehead and walking out of the building. Hotch followed her. Wind and rain assaulted them again, but this time there was something almost welcoming about it. The weather was acting how Emily felt she should; angry and ruthless. It would tear the vineyard up from the roots if it could, and so would she.

They stood in silence, staring out at the seemingly endless rows-upon-rows of grapevines. Emily had a hideous, irrational thought that she could have drunk wine that came from here. Her stomach did an unpleasant flip, but she didn't voice her concern. Beside her, Hotch was still for a while, then he turned to her and opened his mouth, as if he was going to speak.

"You're not gonna believe what we found in here." A voice came that they recognized as Rossi's came through their earpieces, cutting off whatever Hotch was about to say.

Emily brought her sleeve to her face, speaking into her device. "Do I want to see it?"

The silence she was met with left her with little choice and she followed Hotch up to the house, blinking against the rain. Footsteps behind them told them that someone had followed. With a glance backwards, she saw that it was Rawson. He had a serious expression on his face that was uncharacteristic of him; even in the most serious of situations, he always seemed to have a smug grin on his face. This, it seemed, was getting to him.

"I can't watch them get out those bodies." He explained to her. She nodded, understanding. She couldn't have watched it either. There was an undisclosed number of people in those barrels. Could be hundreds, by the sheer size and number of them. The body bags would be enough.

They made their way into the house, walking past officers who looked positively revolted by whatever they had seen down there. The number of people in handcuffs in the houses entrance was shocking to Emily. She already had an inclination of why they were here, but she looked at each one of them as they passed her, making sure to meet their eyes and let them see the disgust she felt. Men and women alike.

Rossi was standing at the end of the corridor, near a door. He gestured for them to go down. Hotch went first, then Rawson. As Emily began to walk down, Rossi touched her shoulder, gently.

"Prepare your self, _mio caro_." There was a soft warning in his voice, in the Italian that he rarely used; the language he ordinarily reserved for when he spoke to the children. Emily felt goosebumps rise on her skin as she made her way down the stairs. Something about the cold that swept over her let her know that bad things had happened down here. This was not a welcoming or pleasant place, not by a long chalk. This was a place of death, of vile happenings.

There was another door at the bottom of the stairs and she pushed it open, finding Rawson and Hotch standing just inside of it, staring at the scene in front of them.

It was a stage.

On the floor, in front of the raised platform on the other side of the room, which obviously acted as a stage, were over a dozen tables. They wouldn't have looked out of place in a rustic restaurant; small, round, large enough for two, maybe three people. In the center of each one stood a grand candelabra. The chairs were decorated with a large bow, the likes of which people had at weddings. They walked slowly through the tables. Emily used her one gloved hand to pick up a small piece of paper that rested on the table nearest to her.

It was a raffle number.

But the tables weren't the thing that turned her stomach. Rawson and Hotch had made it to the stage now and had climbed the stairs. She followed again and had to step back down. That was too close. The smell was too overwhelming. For in front of her was a cadaver.

A young woman, naked. Undeniably dead. She was still bleeding from a wound that gaped open and her cheeks were still flushed. It was the socket where her arm had previously been. The arm itself had been discarded on a nearby table behind a large numbered plaque. _The raffle ticket._

"They were raffling off the body parts." Hotch explained, unnecessarily. His hands were clenched into fists at his sides.

It had been a long time since a case had made Emily cry, but the fact that the girl hadn't been dead for very long affected her; if they'd only gotten here an hour earlier, they could have saved her from her fate.

It wasn't the body on the table that was causing the smell, though. She hadn't been dead long enough. It was the rest of the bodies that hung around the back of the stage, on the rail that would usually house a heavy theatrical curtain. There were bodies in varying stages of decay, most with flies buzzing around the decaying flesh. Some looked as though they had only been dead a few days, some looked as if they'd been there for weeks.

 _Like Claudia Lewis._

One was still dripping blood, like the girl on the table in front of them. His head was the only extremity that he had left. His limbs were on the table, accompanying the woman's. Emily was shaking, she realized, as she stepped backwards down the stairs. She lost her footing and stumbled, falling backwards and landing on her backside on the hard concrete floor. Ignoring the blistering pain in her coccyx, she shoved herself to her feet.

"Are you alright?" Both men had moved to help her, but it was Rawson who spoke first. Emily saw Hotch close his mouth on the words he had been about to say. She nodded, wordlessly, and walked to the door. She wanted to run, she wanted to race, out of that room. But she didn't want to appear weak, so she walked with measured steps, even though every instinct in her body was telling her to get out of there as fast as she possible could.

* * *

"I found this." Garcia said, softly, as they traipsed back into the police station, looking and feeling worn out and miserable. She handed it to Emily. It was a piece of paper that answered the question the agent had been asking herself since they found the dungeon. Why Claudia? "She was rich. Jasons' family, although they liked to put out that they had a lot of money, they lost it all before his father died. Claudia and Jason eloped and got married. That's their marriage certificate; the poor girl thought she was getting her happily ever after. All he wanted was her money, and he took her life from her to get it."

"They paid him for delivering her, too." Reid said, quietly. Nobody asked how he knew that, but they had all been thinking it, anyway.

Morgan wrapped an arm around Garcia's shoulders as tears seeped from the corners of her eyes and rolled down her cheeks. She wiped them away, but didn't struggle away from the profiler. He rest his chin on the top of her head.

"But, why did they dispose of her, and the other four victims, in the way that they did?" JJ asked, voicing their confusion.

None of them had the answer to that question. It was one of those times where they couldn't account for everything. As the team went through the people they'd detained, interview by interview, criminal by criminal, they couldn't get an answer from any one of them. Most refused to talk and those who did talk said things so vile, so disturbing, that Hotch felt his hand twitch towards his gun belt more than once. Morgan lost his cool when one guy made a comment about engaging in sexual activity with Claudia, postmortem. He had the guy up against the wall, one arm across his throat, cutting off the airwaves. Hotch and Rossi went in to pull Morgan off, but neither of them were quick about it.

JJ came out of the final interview, having sat through a detailed account of how watching the girl on the table, who had been identified as Violet Harrington, being dismembered made him feel. She came out of the room queasy and revolted. Sitting down at the long table with her team and the Red Cell team, she joined in their silence. Each of them was reliving what they had seen that day; each trying to find a way to unsee everything.

They got a call later that informed them that that 76 limbs had been discovered in the barrels.

The storm had started up again; they could hear the rain beating down mercilessly on the roof and the windows of the police station. Branches scraped the brick and glass, the wind their puppetmaster. It looked as though the hurricane had circled around for a second go at the West Coast. The agents all wanted to get home, and their eyes all held the same question when Hotch got a call. He left the room and came back a few moments later looking annoyed and even more deflated than before. He shook his head, minutely and there was a unanimous sigh around the table.

They wouldn't be flying tonight.


	13. Don't Cry Because It's Over

That evening, Cooper and Hotch informed their respective teams that they would be eating dinner together. They both explained, with some disapproval evident in their voices, that as a thank you for solving the case, the Mariposa police department was paying for them to eat at the nicest restaurant in time. None of the agents had tried to hide their disapproval at the fact that they had to stay in the town another night, so they all supposed that this was the only thing the police department could think up that would make their night any more bearable. Emily was tempted to argue and insist that she would stay in and order room service, but by the expressions on her teammates faces, it didn't look like any of them were up for it, either. It didn't seem fair to be the only one to bow out of a meal none of them wanted to go to.

It was, apparently, a fairly nice restaurant so Emily figured she had better wear the nicest clothes she had brought with her. Every member of the team always brought something half decent - with the exception of Hotch, who only ever wore suits, anyway - in case they needed to stake out at a club, which happened more often than one would think, or for rare occasions like this. Usually, though, they were asked to dine with the local officers. It was an extremely rare occasion that they simply offered to pay for their meals.

Hotch came to Emily's room a few hours before they were all leaving for the restaurant. The knock on the door was familiar and, since she had just gotten out of the shower, Emily didn't want to just invite him in. She discarded the towel and exchanged it for a white fluffy robe that was a lot less revealing and a lot less suggestive, in her opinion. Then she went to the door and opened it.

"Hi." He said, awkwardly. She gave him a small smile and stepped away from the door, granting him access. He stepped inside and they stood there for a few seconds in silence. She was reminded of the evening he had taken Ava to his flat, of those few moments they had shared. Of the tenderness with which he had kissed her forehead. "I thought we should talk. About...well, last night."

Oh.

She should have been expecting that. She nodded, her mouth suddenly very dry, and moved to sit on the small sofa on the other side of the room. He followed and sat beside her, resting his elbows on his knees. She tucked her legs beneath her and picked at her fingernails, subtly, with her thumb.

"I'm sorry."

Emily was startled. Of all the words she had expected to come out of his mouth, those weren't two of them. She couldn't speak for an entirely new reason now. "As you know, I've always prided myself on being a gentleman. I'm old fashioned and stoic, yes, but I have always been polite and considerate towards women. Especially towards you. Except for last night-"

"Wait," She had to interrupt him, when her voice finally came back, so confused was she. "Aaron, what are you talking about? Why are you apologizing?"

Now he looked confused. "I'm sorry for what happened last night. You were concussed and you weren't thinking straight. I took advantage of that. That's why I've been so on edge around you today; I've been feeling guilty."

If he'd been feeling guilty, it was nothing compared to how she felt now. Those thoughts hadn't even crossed her mind. By the time she woke up this morning, all signs of her concussion, with the exception of the bruise on her forehead, had gone. Yet, because she had left early without an explanation, he had made his way to the entirely wrong confusion. He was talking, apologizing profusely, but she closed her eyes briefly and tried to shush him.

"Aaron, no, stop, please." He did, after she raised her voice slightly, and he stared at the carpet between his feet. She couldn't stand to see him look like that; like a puppy that's been reprimanded. "Aaron, you didn't take advantage of me. I've never heard anything so stupid in my life. I didn't leave because you'd...you'd...I left because I didn't want you to wake up and for us to have to face the awkwardness I knew that would bring." _I just figured I'd deal with the awkwardness at a later date._ She didn't say that part, but she figured it was wordlessly expressed.

He didn't look entirely convinced. At least, not until she started laughing. The guilt was still there, but there was something funny about this situation. She couldn't put her finger on it; maybe it was the fact that they'd both spent the day stressing about entirely different things, or maybe it was the fact that Aaron thought she could ever believe he would take advantage of her. Whatever it was, it tickled her and she was laughing. Given the day they'd had, the gruesome things they'd witnessed, the fact that she was laughing was practically miraculous. It put a smile on his face, and he shook his head, relieved. He'd been worried all day that he had spoiled any chance of a good, platonic relationship between them, because of one night - one _damn good_ night - of frivolous passion.

"God, Aaron," She said, her laughter slowing to a stop. She sighed. "I am sorry you've been feeling guilty all day, and I'm sorry for sneaking out like a school girl. It was just...I didn't want to deal with it before the case. And well, I don't really want to deal with it now. Do we have to deal with it?"

"That depends on what you mean by 'deal with it.'"

"Clarify what it means for us. Because," She put a hand to her chest, wanting the next thing she said to come out as sincerely as possible, "I love you, I do still love you, part of me always will but last night was...well, last night was goodbye."

His expression didn't change. Emily, who had spent the better part of a decade loving this man, knowing this man, needing this man, didn't even see his face twitch. He just looked at her and, after a long time, he nodded. And that was it. That was, apparently, the end of their discussion.

"Okay," He stood up, straightening his trousers as he went. She remained staring at the spot where he had just been and, for just a moment, she cursed the socialized femininity that she knew made her angry that he hadn't responded in a different way. Before she could say anything, however, there was a knock at her door.

"Oh, right," She stood up, pulling the dressing gown tighter around her form, "That's the girls. I was going to explain our situation to them. They're the only ones who don't know, so..."

"Right, yeah." He nodded and began walking to the the door. He stopped half way and seemed to wrestle with something before he turned around to look at her. "Does Rawson know?"

That question took her through an entire range of emotions from shock to anger. Before she could reply, however, he had shook his head, mumbled something about ' _nevermind_ ' and then was gone, leaving the door open so that JJ and Penelope could enter the room and see a bewildered Emily staring, open mouthed, after him.

"What's going on?" Garcia asked as she closed the door behind her and JJ. The latter jerked her thumb towards the door, a confused expression on her face.

"What did we just walk in on? And why are you up here?" She gestured around the room and to the single bed. "Are you guys fighting again?"

"No, we're not fighting." Emily explained, "We're not...anything."

She went on to explain all that she could to her friends. She tried to keep it as unbiased as possible and, if anything, Hotch probably came across as the good guy in the equation, especially when she got to the part about the night before. She told them about how well Hotch had taken it and how she thought that meant he wasn't taking it well at all; the guy might be made of concrete, but when it came to her, he couldn't keep his emotions in check, so he erected a steel wall around himself to keep her out. That was the expressionless expression she had seen on his face when she told him what last night had felt like to her.

"Well, was it bad?" JJ asked, sincerely, as the girls all sat on the single bed. Emily was putting on her make-up. They only had about forty-five minutes left until they were leaving for the restaurant.

"No! God, no. It wasn't bad it was..." Emily's toes curled beneath her as she remembered the night. Neither of her friends missed that. JJ raised her eyebrows.

"That good, huh?" Penelope asked, a cheeky grin on her face. Emily had to smile back, but it wasn't a smile of happiness. It was...wistful, almost.

"Yeah, well, let's just say it'll make a damn good memory." She threw her eyeliner down into her makeup bag a little harder than she intended too, probably hard enough to break the kohl inside.

They were quiet for a little while, as each of her friends mulled over what Emily had told them. She gave them the time, didn't pry them for an opinion or try to explain further. She didn't want them taking sides. Aside from the fact that there was no need too, Hotch was their boss, she was their colleague. The downside to your closest friends being colleagues was that when arguments arose, there was simply no question of them being brought into the workplace. They wouldn't jeopardize their careers by being unprofessional in any way. That said, however, as her friends, Emily knew they would secretly take a side, whether they told her whose side it was, or not. Morgan, whom she had barely spoken too since that morning, had made it abundantly clear whose side he was on. Who's ever side wanted them to get back together.

"I only have one question." Garcia stated, and Emily gestured for her to go on with it. Her friend was looking at her with slightly narrowed eyes, and that scared her a little. "You told the guys first?"

"Uh..see..that takes some explaining." She tried to defend herself, but they weren't having any of it. Penelope grabbed one of her pillows and whacked her with it, mussing up the brunette agents hair as she did so. Emily nodded, "Yeah, okay. Guess I deserved that."

* * *

By the time she was finished talking to the girls, she was almost ready for dinner. She wasn't dreading it, as she had been earlier. Talking to Morgan was a priority; Emily knew they had to make up, and soon. There had been very few instances in the past fifteen years when she and Morgan hadn't been on good terms, and she didn't want this to be one of them.

She made a point of sitting beside Morgan on the drive over and he looked at her. They didn't need words; they were old enough friends that they didn't. She took one of his hands in both of hers and, with a sigh, he kissed her temple before returning to staring out of the window. And, like that, they were fine again. Well, maybe not fine. She could tell by the fact that he sat staring out of the window that what was going on between her and Hotch had him on edge, but _they_ were okay, Morgan and Emily. And, for the moment, for tonight, that was good enough for her.

She and Morgan walked into the restaurant last, with the others all chatting away, with the exception of Hotch, who walked ahead and greeted Cooper. By the time they got to the table, there were two seats left for them. They were together and they were between Penelope and Rawson. Emily gave Morgan a subtle, pleading look, but he either didn't understand it or he didn't see it because he pulled out the chair beside Rawson for her and, out of politeness that had been hammered into her from a young age, and awkwardness as everyone waited for the last two agents to sit down, she took the seat. Mick was smirking down into his glass beside her and Hotch was looking at her from across the table. She gave him a small shrug that she didn't think anybody else noticed, but that didn't subdue him and his gaze moved ever so slightly to Mick.

For the first time since coming back to work, Emily felt as though she could relax. Everybody who needed to know about the situation between her and Aaron knew, which meant they could drop pretenses, and that took a huge weight off her shoulders. She hated keeping secrets from her family.

Rawson behaved himself a lot better than she expected him too, for the majority of their meal. She actually got through her starter and half of her main before he started with his flirting. Everyone else around the table was engaged in their own conversation, but Emily had been texting Elizabeth for the past few minutes about Ava, so she'd isolated herself. Mick glanced from the phone in her hand up to her face and, although she saw the flutter of his eyes, she ignored it. She wasn't going to speak first, no matter how long he stared at her for.

"You don't like me, do you, Emily?" Her name in his accent sounded...odd.

She looked up from her phone, from sending a final goodnight to her mother, and set the device down on the table beside her dinner place. There was a slight smile on her face. "Now, what makes you say that, ego-boy?"

He grinned; it was infectious and she found herself smiling back at him. Maybe it was the vodka-soda (she was making up for the one she didn't get to drink earlier) or the relief of having solved the case, no matter how revolting it had been, or the equal relief of her and Hotch's secret being out, but she felt light this evening. Relaxed, calm. More serene than she had felt for a good few weeks. It felt good, and why shouldn't she revel in it and in some harmless flirting. She and Morgan flirted all the time and nothing ever came of that, right? That thought was too ridiculous for words. Rawson was the same.

"An endearing nickname," He acknowledged, with a laugh. She laughed, too, at the description of it as endearing. "Maybe you like me more than you think."

"More than I think, or more than you think?" She threw back at him. A confused glaze took over his eyes for a moment, then he grinned again.

"Don't try and mess with me, Emily," He held up the beer in his hand, "I've had three of these already, that's simply not fair."

She laughed, enjoying their banter, and turned back to her meal. From across the table, she could see that Hotch was engaged in conversation with Cooper and Rossi. He wasn't watching her, as she had expected. That was good. It was looking more and more like she and Hotch could make this platonic relationship work. She was across the table from him, basically flirting with another guy, a guy that he didn't like, and he didn't care.

He didn't care.

Emily scowled to herself, hating the fact that she hated that he didn't seem to care. She picked up her drink and sipped it, trying to sort through the thoughts in her head. Beside her, she heard Mick chuckle and glanced at him. He was smirking down at his beer. Without looking up at her, he spoke, and his words infuriated her, even though she knew them to be true.

"You're angry that he's not jealous? Come on, Emily. We're not in tenth grade, here."

The fact that he was right angered her, so she chose not to comment, but there was a nagging feeling inside of her for the rest of the evening. Why did she want Hotch to be jealous of Rawson? Hotch loved her, had loved her for ten years. He didn't need to swing a punch at some Welsh guy to prove that. She had called it off, she had asked for space; he was simply giving her what she had asked for. So why was she so annoyed by that?

 _ **End of Part One.**_


	14. Smile Because It Happened

_**Part Two**_

* * *

 **A/N:** i.e one of my favorite chapters so far.

* * *

"Ava?" Emily called, from her bedroom, through into her daughters room. "Ava, sweetheart, are you ready?"

She was fiddling around with her earring, trying to force it through the hole in her ear, and wincing at the sharp pains she was feeling. When had she let her ears close up? Finally, she broke the skin, cursing under her breath, and slid the back on, so it wouldn't fall out. There, that was it. She stepped back, looking herself up and down in the mirror on her wardrobe door, unsure of why she felt so self conscious all of a sudden. It hadn't been _that_ long since she'd had a girls night out. It was, however, the first girls night out since she and Hotch had split up. She wasn't going out as a married woman, with her married friends, anymore. She was going out as a woman who was currently having divorce papers drawn up and no longer wore her wedding ring. She was, as they said, back on the market. Not that she had any intention of letting anybody know that.

It had been a long time since she had gone out as a single woman, however. Nine years and three months, to be exact. For a split second, she considered putting back on her wedding ring, for a little bit of comfort, then decided against it. That was a ridiculous idea; not only would it spark questions from JJ and Garcia, but it was something she had to learn to live without. It wasn't a soft, cushy blanket of familiarity for her to fall back on.

Ava came into the room, dressed in a tracksuit onesie, converse and a body warmer. All pink, of course. All courtesy of Auntie Penny. Emily had put her hair up in pigtails and tied them with pink ribbon, as requested. She was carrying her backpack in her arms, ready for a night in her fathers. The girl looked Emily up and down, her eyes wide.

"Mommy, you look so pretty." Emily smiled at her daughter, who she thought looked more and more like her father every day. She got the same expression on her face as Aaron did when she was concentrating, or when she was frustrated. When she smiled, it was like Emily was looking at Hotch in pigtails. That amusing thought made Emily smile to herself.

"Thank you, angel." She said, as she looked at herself once more in the mirror, smoothing her hands over her black trousers.

The outfit wasn't a new one, but it was one that had been at the back of the wardrobe, out of sight, for a good few years. Black, skintight trousers that cut off just above her ankle; a red, strapless top, with an over-sized bow at the waist. And, of course, her louboutins. They were her newest great love. They'd been a twenty-first present from her mother who had barely known her, way back when. At the time, Emily had rolled her eyes because they weren't her style at all, and she wasn't surprised that her mother had gotten it so laughably wrong. However, Garcia had since educated her on the importance of expensive, red-soled footwear, and the profiler now had a healthy appreciation for her stylish shoes. One she wouldn't reveal to her mother in a million years. Her hair was styled in an elaborate low bun, to one side, and her make up was classy but obvious; dark, smoky eyes and a red lip.

She didn't look like herself. Or at least, not her present-day self. She supposed it had to do with the fact that when she and Hotch had first broken up, she had lost part of her. It became obvious that she had lost herself to their marriage; they had almost merged into one person. It felt odd to go about her daily life without him, she turned to have conversations with him at the dinner table, then realized he wasn't sitting there. She rolled into him of a morning, only to roll into the empty space left by him in their bed and curl in on herself, shivering and lonely. It had taken her weeks to pull herself together and start dealing with it properly. Now, three months later, things were better. They had settled into a routine; even Ava seemed to be adjusting to her new situation. She liked Hotch's new place, liked that when she saw him, he liked to spoil her. Emily had no doubt that her little girl would rather still have her father living with them, but she was making the best of it. They all were.

So, now that things were getting back to... _normality_ , Emily supposed she was too. That was why she had chosen this outfit. Because it screamed Emily, pre-Hotchner.

* * *

Hotch had everything ready. There was a selection of Disney DVD's sitting on his coffee table, as well as a new on he didn't think Ava had yet, which he had wrapped in pink tissue paper. Something about snow, he guessed, from the cover. He knew he shouldn't gift her every time she came to see him, but he'd seen it happen to divorced fathers at the bureau before; their children got to a certain age and stopped wanting to spent time with dad, in favor of seeing their school friends or doing extra-curricular activities. He had a few years before he needed to start worrying about that, with his daughter, he knew, and subtle bribery certainly wasn't the way to make sure it _didn't_ happen, but the irrational part of him that used to worry about whether Haley would let him see Jack told him otherwise. Emily wouldn't ever stop him seeing Ava, or ever let Ava stop visiting her father, not in a million years. But that didn't register.

There was also a steaming mug of hot chocolate on the side, in Ava's favorite _Snow White_ cup. She liked Snow White because "She looks like mommy!". Of course, he had put whipped cream and extra marshmallows on top. Was there any other way for a child to enjoy cocoa?

The buzzer went and he went to the intercom.

"Hello?"

"Hey, it's us."

He wanted to smile at the sound of her voice, but there was something so bittersweet about it these days. Hearing Ava in the background, shouting hello to him, however, did make him smile. "Come on up."

It had been almost four months, now, since he had moved out of their shared house and he missed them. Seeing Ava every weekend they weren't on a case made things easier, but _god,_ he missed _her._ Emily. He missed seeing her of a morning, sleepy-eyed and smiling at him, curled up at his side, craning her neck for a good morning kiss. He hated how immaculate and empty his bathroom looked; the absence of her endless half-full shampoo and conditioner bottles, lipstick tubes and whatever else she had cluttered up their en-suite with, left him feeling sad and lonely.

The sweatpants that she had left on the dresser, after their last night together, working the Mariposa case, had been sitting on his dresser since he'd come back. He didn't know what to do with them. He didn't like to just start wearing them again, but he couldn't bring himself to throw them away. So there they sat, and there they had been for three months straight. It was almost like a daily reminder of their imminent divorce; seeing them everyday was like torture, but still he couldn't bring himself to get rid of them. And she didn't want them back. If she did, she wouldn't have left them in the first place.

There was a small knock on the door; Ava. He went to it, opened it and was immediately hit by a very small wall. His daughter threw her arms around his legs, hugging him, as she always did. Smiling, he reached down, hooked his hands under her arms and pulled her up. Her arms wound around his neck, locking in place. Emily was smiling at the affectionate display.

When he looked at her, he slowly lowered Ava to the floor, setting her on her feet.

"Daddy, is this for me?" She asked, running to the coffee table, having spotted the wrapped up DVD. Hotch didn't answer; he was looking at Emily. She burned under his gaze, a blush rising in her pale cheeks. That didn't help his situation, at all. She looked... _beautiful._ She looked like she had when he first fell in love with her. It wasn't necessarily better than how she normally looked, nowadays. He still thought she was the most beautiful woman he'd ever laid eyes on, a decade and a half later, but seeing her like that. Like she was ten years younger. Something about that tugged on his heart.

Someone was tugging on his sleeve. He tore his eyes away from Emily and glanced down. It was, of course, Ava, and she was waving the DVD at him. "Daddy? Is this mine?" There was a whine in her voice that told him she had already asked him several times.

"Oh. Yeah, princess. Yeah, it is." She tore it open and squealed, excitedly, waving it at her mother.

"Mommy! Daddy bought me Frozen!" Emily smiled down at her daughter, who was bouncing up and down excitedly.

"Wow! Did you thank daddy?"

"Thanks, daddy." Ava called to him as she sped over to the cabinet that housed his DVD player.

He turned back to Emily, taking in her appearance once again, and then realized she was still standing in the doorway. "Sorry," He apologized, sincerely, "Do you want to come in?" He smiled, slightly. "We have hot cocoa."

Emily smiled back. It felt, and looked, natural and genuine. "As tempting as that is, I've got a Pornstar Martini waiting for me at the bar and I'm already late. Ava, come and say goodbye." She glanced down at the watch on her wrist and he realized, with a pang, that it had been his last Christmas present to her. Their daughter came over and hugged. "Be good, my love. Goodnight and sweet dreams, okay?" Emily kissed the girls head and let her go, watching her return to the couch to watch the film. "Thank you for the offer, though." She said, in reference to the cocoa. "And thanks for having her tonight."

"You don't have to thank me for that." He insisted and she nodded.

"No, I know. But thank you anyway."

They stood there for a moment, each unsure of how to move forward, until, finally, Emily stepped forwards and wrapped one arm around his shoulders in a hug. "I'll see you when you drop her off, tomorrow."

"Yeah." He agreed, hugging her back, wrapping both arms around her. He could smell her perfume. Another gift from him; one he'd bought her for their first anniversary that she had loved, so it had become a go-to gift from him to her. It had become _her_ smell. She pulled away and smiled, turning to leave. "Hey, Emily."

She stopped, turning on her heels to look back at him with an inquisitive expression, one eyebrow raised. "Hm?"

"You look beautiful."

Her eyes creased into a smile, and she looked down at her outfit, a blush burning in her cheeks, once more. She didn't say anything, but she bit her lip as she turned to walk away. He watched her to the end of the corridor, and even then he listened to the click of her heels on the floor, until he heard her step into the elevator and she was gone, leaving only the scent of her perfume behind. He'd never forgive himself for letting that one slip away. He closed the door and turned around, finding himself face to face with his daughter.

Her arms were folded across her chest, her head tilted to one side, one eyebrow raised. She looked so much like Emily that it startled the agent, for just a moment. He raised his eyebrows back at her, questioningly. Ava looked at the door, then back at her father. His expression didn't change. The six year old rolled her eyes, with a groan.

"Grown-ups are stupid."

* * *

JJ and Penelope were already at the bar, and they had ordered Emily her go-to girls night beverage. She made her way through the throng of people to where she had spotted her friends sitting. They were engaged in conversation as she neared, but once JJ caught sight of her, she stopped whatever she was saying and her jaw dropped. Penelope followed her gaze and raised her eyebrows.

"Hello, sexy mama." The brunette smiled, swinging her hips, exaggeratedly, as she sauntered over to her friends. She slid into the available seat and immediately picked up her glass. It had been _too long_ since she drank something that wasn't the occasional glass of wine that she allowed herself. With their job, they were never off duty unless it was official and in the books that the back-up team would be working, and tonight was the first occasion that it had been so for a long time. This weekend, they were officially off the clock. And that felt _good._

"How's Ava?" Penelope asked, sipping her own brightly coloured beverage. Her friend looked like she usually did; there was little difference between Penelope's work clothes and her actual, real life clothes. Emily liked the differentiation in her own wardrobe, personally. But she also loved her friends sense of style; looking at Penelope sitting there in her bright pink dress with a blue cardigan thrown over the top, a yellow belt around her waist and shoes to match, could put a smile on Emily's face in a way only she could.

"She's good, yeah. I just dropped her off at Aarons'. She's taken to the situation a lot better than we anticipated she would, I'm actually really proud of her."

"If Will and I split up, I think Luca would fall apart." JJ said, in reference to her eight year old son. Emily smiled. Luca was a sensitive little boy; much quieter than his older brother, now thirteen year old Henry. "But I'm not surprised Ava is dealing. She _compartmentalises_ like her mother." JJ said it like she was teasing and Emily rolled her eyes.

"Jamie deals. But Kevin and I broke up when he was a babe in arms, so I suppose he's never known anything different, really." JJ and Emily nodded, agreeing with Garcia. She had been unknowingly pregnant with her ten year old son when Kevin had asked her to marry him, all those years ago, before JJ had even tied the knot with Will, and shortly after her friends' wedding, she had found out. She and Kevin had tried to make it work, again, for their child's' sake, but in the end they decided they were better as friends. To their credit, they made it work.

"Enough baby talk!" JJ said, banging her palm on the table and sipping at her own drink. She put down the glass a little too heavily and Emily wondered how many her friend had drank before she'd arrived. "We deal with children every day, and if we're not dealing with children, we're dealing with serial killers. So, tonight...can we just not talk about either of them?"

"Amen." Emily and Penelope agreed, clinking their glasses together.


	15. We Have To Stop Meeting Like This

**A/N:** Hope you're like seeing the guys outside of work! I promise they will get back into the action of it all. ;) I also feel like by the end of this chapter, I'm probably stretching the boundaries of believability a little, but y'all can deal. That's what fiction is all about, no? It's super long, too. Hope you guys don't mind!

 _S_ x

* * *

The room was lit softly with pink; not brightly, just enough so that if Ava woke in the night, she wouldn't be afraid. What with his apartment still being relatively new to her, Hotch worried about how settled she felt when she stayed over. She had only been sleeping over for about a month, regularly, since he'd finished decorating her bedroom especially for her. He had tried to make it look as similar to her bedroom in their house as he could, just for the familiarity. She didn't have the same toys at his place, obviously, but the wallpaper, bed frame and wardrobe were all the same. The nightlight was new.

He pulled the door over, satisfied that she was settled and sleeping soundly. She'd been in bed for an hour and he hadn't heard anything from her, which was comforting. He wanted her to feel as comfortable here, in his new place, as she did in their house.

God, he had to stop saying that.

It wasn't _their_ house anymore. It was her house. Emily's. They were having the paperwork drawn up that would put the house in her name, solely. The mortgage was paid, so it wasn't that complicated. They were planning to sign those papers the same day as their divorce papers.

Aaron sat down on his sofa and glanced around his living room. How had it come to this? For ten years he'd been content in his house, with his wife and children. He remembered when Haley had filed for a divorce, when he'd signed the papers in front of his team members. It had been embarrassing and torturous all in one, but it had been nothing compared to when Emily had told him she wanted one. He still remembered her standing there, when he was handed the papers.

* * *

"Who's up for a drink?" Rossi had asked, after a particularly wrenching case. None of them had felt that one quite as much as JJ, he remembered. A pregnant woman shooting her murderous husband, who'd inherited the violence from his murderer father, wasn't something JJ had forgotten quickly, or dealt with well. She wasn't up for the drinks.

"Who's up for five?" Emily had put forward, earning a laugh from Morgan and agreement from Rossi.

"Enough with the I don't know's, Kid," Morgan had said, at Reid's' response. "You're coming."

"Hotch?" He had agreed, begrudgingly. It wasn't as if he was rushing home to anybody; Haley and Jack weren't there any more for him to rush home too.

It was then that somebody had come in and presented him with the papers to sign. It was urgent enough that he was being served at his workplace. Why they couldn't wait until later, he didn't know. It was with embarrassment that he signed, waiting for the question. It came from Emily, who stood by, looking concerned. He had paused a moment, steeling himself to make the announcement, and when he looked up at her, it was with an expression that demanded no sympathy, no pity. They would do him no good.

"Haley's filing for divorce." The expression on her face showed her surprise and the sympathy he hadn't wanted, and it was replicated on the faces of his team as he glanced around the room. "I've been served."

* * *

How odd, he thought, that back then, he hadn't seen Emily as anything other than his colleague. Of course, he'd always known she was beautiful; you had to be blind or dead to miss Emily Prentiss' sheer feminine elegance, her outright attractiveness. But, after a while of seeing her everyday, her beauty had taken a back seat to her impressive and irreplaceable skill set and her talent in the field. It wasn't her appearance he had eventually fallen in love with; it was her sense of humor, her empathy, her depth and all of the dark places inside her heart that she tried so hard to keep hidden. Her love for her team, her friends, her family. Her soul was as beautiful as she was on the outside, and, eventually, when he had fallen in love with her, there had been no question about it.

Thinking like that, though, wasn't going to do him any good. It certainly wasn't going to help him start moving forwards. He ran a hand over his face, as if to erase the thoughts from his mind, and sat back, pressing play on the remote. He was watching some documentary on prisons. Why, he didn't know. Like he didn't get enough of this stuff in work.

* * *

"What?" JJ laughed, her voice too loud; a side effect of the amount of alcohol she had consumed. "We've just never done it! It's not weird, I bet loads of couples haven't! You guys are just...sex addicts!"

Penelope and Emily exchanged affronted looks, before bursting into laughter. Emily brought her glass to her lips, accidentally sloshing some of the drink over the side in her intoxicated state. This sent the girls into another wave of laughter. When those giggles had died off, JJ was looking at her friends, expectantly.

"What? You guys announce that you've both had sex in public and you're not going to spill the details?" She pushed, looking from the brunette to the blonde, and back again. Emily put her glass to her lips and took a long drink, looking over the rim at Penelope, basically signalling that she should dish the dirt first. Penelope, of course, was too happy to oblige. She set her own drink down.

"It wasn't that big a deal. It was just the park. We were camping. Not as wild as you were thinking, huh, Jayje?" Pen smirked, at JJ's unimpressed expression.

"Oh, come on, camping so does not count!"

"It does, too!"

Emily let this continue for a minute, JJ and Penelope going back and fourth, arguing their respective points. Then, as if they'd planned it, they both turned to her at the same time, their eyebrows raised. One of the best things about being in a three-person friendship group, if not _the_ best thing, was that there was always a mediator in arguments. Emily knew her next comment was detrimental and, with an apologetic look towards their bubbly, colorful friend, she shook her head.

"Sorry, Pen, doesn't count."

"Dammit!" Penelope slammed her hand down on the table. JJ was laughing and celebrating by ordering another beer from the passing waitress. Penelope's disgruntled expression only lasted seconds, as they always did. The blonde was never down for long. When she looked up though, it was with raised eyebrows and a scandalized expression. "Emily Prentiss-hyphen-Hotchner, sorry I know you're getting divorced but I'm in denial about it so I'm still gonna call you Mrs Hotchner for the foreseeable future - where, and I really hope I'm not going to regret asking this question, have you done the deed?"

Emily's smile fell away and her mouth fell open, slightly. She reached for her glass, but JJ put her hand over the top, so she couldn't pick it up. An involuntary smile that she couldn't stop, that she put down to both remembering the events and the embarrassment of having to disclose them, crept onto her face. She bit her lip, before clearing her throat.

"Oh," JJ said, with a nod, "This is gonna be good."

"Do not judge me." Emily warned, pointing at the girls. JJ crossed her heart and Penelope rolled her eyes as if to say _would we ever_. "So, when Hotch and I first got together...we kind of...kept a mental score sheet of all the places we did it. As in...Bureau related places."

The shock on her friends faces was evident. They weren't surprised in the slightest that Emily had been game for that; they had no illusions about the fact that Em had always enjoyed a little injection of kink in the bedroom. Hotch, on the other hand. Throughout the years, Emily had recounted stories for them, as girls do, and every time they were surprised by their Unit Chief and how well he hid that side of himself from them. There really was an entirely different side to that man that none of them knew about. With the exception of his wife.

Penelope's mouth fell open.

"Oh, my god. Emily, my raven haired beauty, god knows I love you. You're one of my favourite people _ever,_ but if you and Hotch bumped uglies in my little hub of technological wonderment then I may just have to strangle you."

Penelope didn't have to be a profiler to see the guilt written across her friends face. She had no words, she just stared at Emily, in complete shock.

"Sorry, Pen! And...uh...sorry, Jayje." She said, and grabbed the glass from the table. JJ's hand slipped from it and thudded onto the table as she took in what her friend has said. They both looked shocked, and then they started laughing.

"Anywhere else we should know about?" JJ asked, amused, as the waitress came back with the beer she'd asked for.

JJ and Penelope exchanged glances as Emily reeled off her list. They weren't all BAU locations, but those that were were impressive and her friends were almost jealous.

"Hotch's desk was always a favourite. Oh, we were also rather active members of the Mile High Club for a while." She wasn't looking at either of them, but rather off into a distant and steamy memory. The girls looked at each other once more, and then at their dark haired friend. She snapped back into the present, feeling their eyes on her, and looked at them. "What?! You guys asked!"

"Yeah, well..." Penelope said, something in her voice that Emily recognized to be awkwardness. There was some amusement in there, too. JJ smacked Penelope on the arm, shaking her head. Emily tilted her head slightly, narrowing her eyes.

"Guys?" There was something Penelope wanted to say, something that JJ didn't want her too. "Oh, come on, after what I just told you? You have to spill it!"

"The, uh, the jet didn't exactly come as a surprise."

"Yeah," JJ explained. "Sorry, Em. The bathroom isn't soundproof and you and Hotch aren't exactly quiet...we're all pretty light sleepers. Who knew Hotch had such a dirty mouth, huh?" She and Penelope burst into laughter.

Emily's response died on her lips, as embarrassment burned its way up her pale skin, as a waitress came over with three drinks on her tray. "Uh, these," She said, setting them down, "Are from the gentleman at the bar." She lowered her voice to a whisper, the conspiratorial tone that only girls used with each other coming out. "He's cute, and these are the most expensive drinks on the menu!"

"Uh, Emily..." JJ nodded to where the waitress had been talking about and before she even turned around, Emily knew who she would find. She turned back to table and to her friends, with an exasperated expression on her face. They were looking at her, expectantly and she raised her eyebrows.

"What!?"

"What do you mean, what? Aren't you going to go talk to him?" Penelope said, pointing over at the bar. If Rawson was looking over at them, he could see that they were clearly having a discussion about him. Emily, for one, was surprised at her friends enthusiasm.

"What happened too - 'are you sure you and Hotch can't work it out?' and 'I'm in denial'?" She imitated her friend, putting on a high pitched voice. Penelope glared at her. OK, so maybe she was exaggerating and teasing her a little bit, but her point was valid. JJ and Penelope had started trying to get Emily and Hotch back together ever since she broke the news to them.

"We want you to be happy," JJ explained, her tone now a lot more sober than it had been only a moment ago, "If that means living your life without Hotch...then that's what you need, and we'll support you no matter not. But over there," She nodded to the bar, once more, "Is a hot British dude who has wanted have his exotic, British way with you ever since you met him, oh, eleven years ago? If you wanna get over your ex-husband, I would suggest starting there."

"I'm with her on this one." Penelope told her, with an affirmative nod. "Just don't do it in my haven. If anyone ever gets to have sex with a guy with an accent that hot in my office, it will be me, and unfortunately, that's not likely to happen anytime soon. Anywhere buy my hub."

"And my office." JJ put in. Emily rolled her eyes at them both; they were never going to let that go. She glanced back over at the bar, sighed and picked up the drink. She knocked it back in a few short gulps, much to the surprise and worriment of her friends. Then she grabbed her bag.

"How do I look?" She asked them, really not wanting to care and hating that she did. "Do I look okay?" Once she got the affirmation she needed, and reassurance that she still looked hot, she stood up. "I'll be back soon," She turned to walk away, then paused and glanced back at them. "Oh, and there really is nothing exotic about having sex with a British dude." She told them, then thought about her statement. "Not exotic. Rough, sure. But not exotic."

* * *

When Rawson spotted Emily and her friends from across the bar, it was completely by chance. They'd not seen each other for a decade, then to see each other twice in three months? She was going to think he'd started stalking her. He figured that if he didn't make his presence known, and she saw him, she would definitely think that. So, sending over their drinks was almost personal preservation. Or, so he told himself. The fact that they were the most expensive drinks on the menu was completely besides the point. Although he _had_ asked the waitress to discreetly disclose that information upon delivery of the beverages.

His other senses picked up on her presence before he saw her. He heard the click of heels, smelt that perfume he associated with her, heard her clear her throat. He practically felt his nerves tingle as she stopped beside him. Glancing over, he couldn't help but admire her. God, how had she not aged in a decade? And after a kid?

"What? You've taken to stalking now?" She teased him, leaning one arm on the bar. He smirked up at her and, god she wanted to wipe that smirk off his face, but at the same time, she hated that there was something so endearing about it. She'd hated how attractive she had found it ten years ago, too.

"I guess there be some kind of magnetic attraction pulling me to you, because I had no idea you'd be in this bar, on this night. But I guess I hit the jackpot, huh?" He raised his bottle to his lips, the smirk still there. Emily smiled back at him. "Wow." He commented softly. His cocky confidence was gone from his voice. She raised her eyebrows, questioningly. "I think that's the first genuine smile I've ever gotten out of you."

She was slightly taken aback by that comment. The fact that he had noticed that there was a difference between her sarky smiles and a genuine one was...almost impressive. She didn't think he knew her well enough to know the difference; including this time, they'd met all of three times in their lives. He had taken more notice each time than she had ever thought. Her smile remained in place and she sat down on the stool beside him.

"You're getting divorced then, huh?" He questioned. She nodded. The barman came over and she gave him her drinks order. When it came, Mick insisted on paying. "That sucks."

Emily laughed. She actually laughed. Because, in three months, nobody had been that blunt with her about it. "Yeah," She agreed, still laughing at the absurdity of it all, "Yeah, it does suck. It _really_ sucks."

"Who's decision was it?"

"Mine." She said, instantly. Why was she being so open about this, with Mick Rawson? _Oh, right._ She thought. _The exorbitant amount of alcohol you've consumed tonight. What the hell happened to your tolerance? "_ I called it. It just wasn't working, anymore."

"Sorry." Rawson said. He sounded like he actually meant it. "A lot has happened in the ten years since I last saw you, Emily Prentiss." He disclosed, "I'm a divorcee myself, so I can empathize. It's not a fun thing to go through. But at least I didn't work with my ex, so I don't have to see her every day. That must hurt, huh? Having to come face to face with that pain every day."

Learning that Mick had been married and gotten a divorce was news to her. He'd changed so little since they'd first met, or so it seemed, that she'd simply assumed he'd gone on living his life in exactly the same way as he'd been living it before. The bachelor, seven girls a week, kind of lifestyle she'd always assumed he lived. Learning that she had been wrong almost made her feel ashamed of herself. Of all people, she should know about life and it's changes and how nothing was permanent; not a lifestyle, not a marriage.

"I'm sorry." She said it not only in reference to his divorce, but privately in reference to the fact that she had judged him so quickly and so harshly. "Life is a hell of a thing to happen to a person, huh?" She quoted what Rossi had once said to her. It was one of those sayings she knew would stick with her forever; it's truth rang out more so than anything she had ever heard.

"So, to sum up," He said, and his jovial, laddish tone was back in his voice. She looked at him, unimpressed but smiling, at his predictability, "We are both here. Tonight. Both single."

"Hmm." She nodded, her face giving nothing away. She was looking down at her glass. "That is an accurate summation."

"Do you think we should do something about that?"

Emily looked at him, and laughed aloud. "Wow. You don't waste time, do you?"

He was grinning. There was something irritatingly endearing about that smile, about his self confidence. Maybe it was the fact that he was just _so_ different to Hotch that made him enticing. She needed something different. She needed to move on, and JJ was right. This was the best way she was going to do that.

"Take me to dinner." She told him, picking up her drink and standing up. "Next Friday. Then we'll talk."


	16. Penny's Plan

Monday morning came quickly and Penelope found herself worried. Frantic, almost. She'd been roped into babysitting for Friday, when Emily was going out with Mick because Em didn't want to have to explain to Hotch that she was going on a date and it was her night; Ava was supposed to be going to Hotch on Saturday, so Emily was going to pick her up from Pens and take her over to his place. That felt kind of sketchy for Penelope; too sketchy. But Emily had begged and the blonde never could resist when Em pulled out those pleading puppy dog eyes. So, reluctantly, she had agreed. Now, however, she was having second thoughts and she was walking on eggshells, praying she wouldn't bump into boss man this morning. However, she never was the lucky one. She almost walked into him as she rounded the corner into the bullpen.

"Garcia?" He questioned, looking down at her with a slightly furrowed brow. _Oh, okay, time to play 'guess Hotch's facial expression'_. She would have to ask Em or Reid (they were the only ones who got it right 99% of the time) but she would guess the present expression on his face was either concern or confusion. "Are you alright?"

 _Okay, both. Point to Penelope._

"Why do you ask?" She cursed herself as the question tumbled from her lips; never answer a question with a question around profilers. It's a sure sign of guilt. Hotch raised his eyebrows, waiting for her to explain. She shook her head and pasted a smile onto her face. "Sorry, Sir. Just a little frantic this morning because my alarm went off late."

"You're exactly on time." He noted, with a glance towards the clocks. Dammit, there couldn't just be one to prove him right, could there. There had to be one for every continent. She just looked at him with as innocent an expression as she could muster and he seemed to give up not long after; he gave a minute shrug but the skepticism didn't leave his face. He almost looked amused. "Okay. But there is something up with you today. If you're not going to talk to me about it, talk to Morgan or JJ. Or Emily."

The pause before his wife's..soon to be ex-wife's name didn't go unnoticed. Penelope didn't have to be a profile to recognize it, or to know that she shouldn't comment on it. She just nodded, with that smile still on her face, and breathed a sigh of relief when Hotch stepped around her and exited through the glass doors.

Her heels resumed their fast pace and found their way to JJ's office. The blonde was removing her coat, having just gotten into work. Penelope walked in and closed the door behind her, clutching the file she held to her chest. JJ looked at her with confusion.

"Are you okay?"

Penelope was shaking her head, frantically, with her back still pressed to the door. "No, I'm not okay. I am freaking out!" She walked into the room and slammed down the file onto JJ's desk. "Emily asked me to babysit."

JJ looked confused; she raised her eyebrows and her lips tilted up in a slightly amused smirk. "Garcia, you love babysitting Ava? You've done it a million times. We both have?"

Penelope was nodding now, equally as vehemently. "Yes, yes. It's not that at all; that little girl is the light of my life. You know, besides my own child." JJ's eyebrows shot up and Penelope waved a hand at her. "And your little bundles of joy, _obviously!_ But she's asked me not to tell Hotch that Ava is staying with me because the reason she is staying with me is Em is going out with Rawson. On. A. Date!"

The last three words she put extra emphasis on, opening and closing her hands with each word, for extra impact. JJ's face had fallen and, with a sigh, she fell into her chair. She raked her hands through her hair and leaned her head back, swinging the chair from side to side slightly.

"This is a mess." The blonde sighed.

* * *

Emily, meanwhile, was having second thoughts about the date herself. She'd dropped Ava off at school and then immediately driven to work, as she had for two years since Ava had started going to school. Having given Mick her number, they had been texting back and fourth. It was fun and flirty, and it was weightless. There was something about chatting to Mick that made Emily feel like her younger self. But everytime she replied to his texts, there was a nudge of guilt from somewhere inside that she had to push away each time.

She sat down at her desk and shoved her bag into the bottom draw, pulling out her mobile and setting it on her desk beside her computer. Spencer glanced across at her; he always beat her to work these days.

"Good morning," He greeted her with a smile. Emily glanced over at him, flicking her fringe out of her eyes.

"Morning." She replied, with a quick smile. She glanced at her laptop, typing in her username and password to log into the system.

"Why are you feeling stressed?"

She looked at him, quickly, her hair splaying out around her face as she did so. Sometimes, being a profiler and having a group of profilers as your closest friends was really irritating. Over the years, they had learned that there were times they _could_ and _should_ profile each other and there were times when they certainly _should not_ profile each other and the look that Emily gave Spencer in that moment told him that this was one of those latter moments.

"Spencer." She said, with a tone of gentle warning in her voice, "I love you. But it's not the kind of thing you and I talk about."

He looked a little hurt, glancing slightly to the left of her. Emily couldn't stand the wounded look in his eyes and immediately she felt the need to apologize. "We talk about everything."

He sounded as if he genuinely believed that; in all of their years of friendship, they had been through a lot together. Emily had always been one of the first people Spencer would go to for help; right behind JJ, but Emily confided in the younger team member less. She preferred to be the one Reid could lean on, rather than her leaning on him.

"I'm sorry," She said, softly, looking defeated and guilty, "There _are_ things I can only talk to you about but.."

She didn't really have the words for what she needed to say. She hadn't come in this morning expecting to be confronted with someone concerned for her. She hadn't realized she was being so obvious. But she probably wasn't. Spencer was just _that_ good. He was good enough that he understood what she was trying to convey to him. That there weren't words for whatever it was she wanted to say. That she respected him, loved him, needed him...just not in that moment. He respected, loved and needed her enough that he didn't push it, wouldn't push it. He just offered her an understanding smile and a nod.

"Tea?" He offered.

She smiled and nodded. "Thanks."

* * *

"Spence." JJ called from across the break room. He turned away from the tea station and raised his eyebrows, questioningly. "Do you have a minute?"

He nodded and followed her to her office, to find that Morgan and Garcia were already there. He glanced around, intrigued, as JJ gestured for him to enter and then closed the door behind him.

"No Rossi?" Reid asked.

"He'd tell Hotch." That perked his interest.

She lent on her desk, next to Garcia, and glanced at the blonde, waiting for her to talk.

"I have gathered you here today - how ironic, that sounds so wedding-y-" JJ nudged her with her elbow. "Right. Back on track. Em and Hotch. We all know this divorce is never going to go through, they're going to work it out-"

"Hold up, baby girl." Morgan shook his head, folding his arms across his chest. "I don't think I'm going to like where this is going."

"I _know_ Hotch is our boss. But he's our friend first and foremost; we've been through too much together in all these years to not try and help them! They're made for each other. You guys know it, I know it. And most importantly _they_ know it. They are the Monica and Chandler of our team!"

A quiet laugh rippled around the other three people in the room.

"It's true! Spence, you're Ross; the academic. Morgan, you're the stud. Joey, of course. I'm quirky, I'm _obviously_ Phoebe. Sorry, Jayje, you're Rachel by default, not because you're neurotic or a neat-freak." JJ looked slightly affronted for a moment, but she seemed to shrug it off quickly.

"I don't think Hotch is funny enough to be Chandler-" Reid was cut off by JJ.

"Pen, we need to stay focused here." The blonde looked at the two men in the room. "Penelope came up with the crazy idea that we should trick them into a date. I'm employing you guys to help me convince her it's a terrible idea."

To JJ's horror, Reid and Morgan exchanged a look. The expressions on their faces told her that they weren't as opposed to the idea as she was. She watched the cogs turn in their minds, could see them planning it all out.

"Okay." Morgan said, clearing his throat. "I may have a little insider information that could help our cause, but I'm about to drop a bombshell on y'all, so brace yourselves." He glanced around at them, purposefully building the tension. "Hotch ran into Beth about two weeks ago. They're going for drinks on Friday."

It was Garcia and JJ's turn to exchange a glance. That was coincidental, at best. But it could work out perfectly for them. JJ had to remind herself that this was a terrible idea, but something was niggling at her, telling her that Penelope was right. But she knew that neither Emily nor Hotch was going to appreciate them interfering. Not only was it not their place, but it broke basically all of the guidelines by which they had always lived; never interfere in each others lives without request. There had been many an occasion when they _had_ interfered, and it usually ended well, because it was always well intentioned and necessary. It was never as serious a situation as this. They _never_ messed with each others love lives.

"Guys, I really don't think this is a good idea."


	17. Date Night

**This is a short and late chapter. But I hope you guys are still interested in this story X**

* * *

Guilt gnawed at her heart as she climbed the few steps to Penelope's house. Her heels clicked on the stone like a clock ticking down. At her side was her little one, excited for an evening with Auntie Penny. She was swinging her mother's arm back and forth. At least she didn't see that what her mother was doing was almost deceitful. She raised her hand and knocked on the door. It swung open to reveal Penelope; her face spread in a smile as she greeted Ava, who slammed into her in a hug.

"Hey, angel face. Come on in and get yourself comfortable on the couch." She stepped back and opened up the door. Ava attempted to shoot past her into the lounge.

"Hey you." Emily called her back. She bent at the knees so she was level with her daughter. "Kiss."

Ava rolled her eyes and gave her mother a kiss on the cheek and a hug. Emily held her a moment longer than usual, breathed in her smell, felt her heart contract with love for her daughter. "Be good, sweetheart."

"I will, mom." Ava didn't look back as she went inside.

"You're not coming inside?" Penelope looked a little disappointed. Great. What difference did a little more guilt make?

"Uh, no. I'm meeting Mick at 8 and," She glanced down at the watch on her wrist. "I'm probably already going to be late."

Penelope nodded. "Alright. Do you wanna do brunch tomorrow? Bring Ava with us and then take her to the park?"

Brunch. Specifically. Meaning Penelope didn't think Emily would make it to breakfast; Penelope thought she might be preoccupied. Sometimes her profiling skills went into overdrive and she hated it. Nevertheless, Emily nodded. A day with Penelope would be just what she needed. She might pry, into what was going on with her and Aaron or her and Mick, but once Emily asked her to, she would stop. "Brunch sounds amazing."

"Alrighty, it's a plan." There was an awkward pause. A moment where neither of them was quite sure what to say, before Emily cleared her throat and smiled again.

"I'd better be going, but thanks again for doing this, Pen. I really appreciate it." She turned to leave, but Penelope called her back. Closing the door over, Penelope stepped out of the door and lowered her voice.

"Uh…I just need to know. Does Hotch know she's here? Because if not, I'm not sure how comfortable I feel lying to him."

"You're not lying to him. Neither of us are lying to him." Emily insisted, feeling a little taken aback.

"I understand where you think you're coming from with this, I really do. You think it's more tactful to leave her with me than to ask Hotch to have her while you go on a date with another guy, but now that you guys are broken up, I really think he would appreciate as much time with Ava as he can get. Especially after what he went through with Jack and Haley."

Wow. That hurt. For a moment, Emily wanted to snap back. Her facial expression must have given as much away, because Penelope frowned and then her eyes turned soft, gentle. Apologetic.

"I'm sorry, Em. It's none of my business and I love you and I love Ava, and you know I'll babysit anytime. I just…I don't feel right hiding this from Hotch."

"We're not hiding anything. If he asks, I'll tell him the truth. Until then, it's not a lie." Emily knew she was getting off on a technicality; she tried not to think about it. "I'll see you at brunch."

Penelope watched Emily walk away, her long black coat flapping around her bare legs in the slight breeze, her four inch heels clicking down the path, and thought that Emily was making more of an effort for this date than any recently separated woman ought to. Penelope was no profiler herself, but she had spent enough years around them to read basic human behaviour and from what Penelope could tell, Emily was moving on quickly in order to try and recover from the hurt she was feeling as a result of the break up. It was unhealthy behaviour but that conversation could wait for tomorrow. Although, she suspected Emily would have something else to talk to her about tomorrow.

She was early. Taking a seat at the bar, Emily had a vantage point of the door so that when Mick arrived, she would see him before he saw her. She would have chance to prepare herself. She twisted the ring on her finger; it was an unimportant piece of dress jewellery but it acted as a ghost of her engagement and wedding rings, which had given her comfort for so long. Without them, she felt naked, so she wore the cheap sterling silver band to distract herself.

The bartender handed her the espresso martini she had ordered and she put it to her lips, trying to quell her nerves. Ten years was a long time to go without a date. Dates with her husband didn't count; she barely remembered what their first dates were even like. What she did remember, however, was the first time they both realised their romantic feelings towards each other were mutual.

It was JJ's wedding.


	18. Tick, Tick, Tick

**You get two chapters tonight. Aren't you guys lucky X**

* * *

The case had been horrific. And that was putting it lightly. But Rossi had come up with the idea to surprise JJ with a wedding ceremony and it was the injection of happiness that they all needed at a time like this. Emily, especially.

"How are you?" He asked her, as they stood in Rossi's hallway. She said nothing, only exhaled. He smiled, slightly. "That bad, huh?"

She looked confusedly at him, quirking an eyebrow. "What?"

"That's your tell."

"It is?"

"Mm-hmm." He noticed those things about her. He noticed everything about her. It had become painful, lately, that he was so acutely aware of her every movement, her every idiosyncrasy. It made him internally cringe whenever she and Beth were in the same vicinity.

"You have one too, you know." She was smiling at him, teasing him. He raised his eyebrows, questioningly. "Only I'm not gonna tell you what it is, because then you'll stop doing it."

They had been enjoying this playful banter more and more lately; ever since she had gotten back from Paris, really. He had missed her. God, he had missed her; more than he had ever expected to, truthfully. The mere idea of Doyle was enough to fill him with rage. And when he thought about what they had meant to each other…he had asked Emily, once. If any of it had been real. If she had loved him. Yes, she said, with regret in her eyes, yes she had fallen in love with him. That hurt him more than losing her had.

"We should probably go through."

The ceremony was beautiful. JJ was glowing and Will looked like the happiest man on earth, unable to take his eyes off his bride as she walked down the aisle towards him. Emily couldn't help but look across at Hotch. His eyes were on JJ and Will and he was smiling, holding Beth's hand. Her heart clenched; these feelings were new and unwelcome. Ever since coming back from Paris, her relationship with her unit chief had changed. He was more compassionate, more caring and he had become a confidant of hers; he was the one she went to whenever she was upset or confused or suffering from PTSD, which had become a real problem for her. His eyes shifted over to her and met hers for a moment. She didn't look away and she could have sworn she saw him inhale sharply.

She dropped her eyes and turned her head away, her heart suddenly erratic in her chest.

That was when she made up her mind to leave; she had to go. She couldn't stay, not when she felt this way for Hotch. It was dangerous and unprofessional and he was in a relationship; impractical was what her mother would call falling for an unavailable man. It was a true recipe for disaster when he was your boss.

It broke her heart to tell them, but she did, one at a time. Garcia's eyes filled with tears and she held Emily's hand hard, not looking at her. JJ was much the same, but hugged her tightly, like she didn't want to let her go. Reid said he couldn't believe he was losing her again, which broke her heart, but he wished her luck.

"You always have family here." He told her, kissing her hand as they danced together. She smiled; she knew that already. She would come back to them one day, undoubtedly. But for now she had to get away.

Rossi was next. He danced with her the way she expected her father would, if he was still around. He whispered something Italian in her ear, something she knew to mean good luck and love, and they danced to the end of that song, when he kissed her on the forehead and released her into Morgan's arms.

Morgan looked momentarily angry, but that quickly subsided and his eyes were soft and sad as he looked at her. She put one hand on his chest, over his heart. "You know I love all of you. I will always love you all. But I have to do this, for me."

She couldn't tell Hotch. She didn't want to tell Hotch. He would make her explain and she couldn't; she felt like if she opened her mouth to try all of her secret truths would come tumbling out and then where would they be? Then, they couldn't even be friends. So she picked up her shawl from a chair at the edge of the dance floor and, with a glance back at her friends and colleagues, who were all being amused by a dancing Henry, she left the party and walked through Rossi's house, out the front, to order a cab.

"Emily?"

Of course it was him. She was just that lucky. She turned and smiled; he was standing out the front with his phone in his hand.

"I was just calling to say goodnight to Jack," He said, holding it up. "He's with Jessica."

"Ah." That was all she could come up with in response. She was thinking about that look they had shared before, and when she met his eyes, she wondered if he was thinking about it too.

"I saw you talking to everyone; they all seemed a little upset. Anything you need to discuss with me?"

So he had been watching her this evening. That was information that shouldn't have meant to much to her, but for some reason made her heart beat harder again. She didn't want to have this conversation, at least not right now, but she wasn't going to lie to him, either. She inhaled, deeply.

"I'm taking the London job."

His expression changed to a frown. "You're leaving?"

She couldn't even reply to him, couldn't make words come out. She just nodded. Then he nodded. Then there was silence between them. It was a loaded silence; each of them had so many things to say, but neither of them had the strength or the courage to do so.

Finally, Hotch broke the silence. "Is this because of me?"

Emily was taken aback. Sure Hotch was usually pretty blunt when it came to unsubs and cases, but when it was his team mates and emotions, he was usually a little more reserved. To hear such an evocative question come out of his mouth was an alien concept to her. But she couldn't lie to him.

"Partly. But it's also partly because I can't imagine staying here; I don't know how to live this life anymore. I'm not the same person I was before everything that happened with Doyle, and I don't know that I can ever be here again. And then there's…"

"Me?"

She nodded. There was no use in denying anything anymore. She was leaving anyway; might as well put everything on the table. That way, he could tell her that he was with Beth and she could move on.

"Please don't leave because of me." That was as vulnerable as she had ever heard Hotch sound. He crossed the distance between them. "Stay, Emily. You know the team needs you."

"Hotch, I can't do this right now." Her heart was about to pound through her chest and she was painfully aware of how close to her he was. She put her hand on his chest, wanting to push him away, but it settled there and she couldn't apply the pressure it would take to make him move. All she could feel was his heart beating as erratically as hers. She looked up at him.

"Beth?"

He shook his head. "We broke up a week or so ago, she was here tonight to keep up appearances because I wasn't about to ruin JJ's night, and we've been at the bureau."

"It doesn't change anything, Hotch."

"It changes everything." He insisted. "Emily, things have been different between us since you came back. I missed you. It changed how I feel about you." She stared into those eyes, eyes she had loved for so long, and tilted her head as his lips came down to meet hers in their first, their sweetest, kiss. "I can't lose you again."

* * *

But he had lost her, and she had lost him. And from that moment, their relationship had been on a timer that had finally run out. She had made her way through her martini and asked the barman for another.

"I'll get that."

She turned and of course, just like on the night of JJ's wedding, she knew it was his voice before she saw his face.

"What are you doing here?"


	19. It's Different, Now

"What are you doing here?"

Her question took him by surprise; it wasn't an accusatory question, but there was more curiosity in it than he had expected. He, too, was surprised; surprised by her presence and by the fact that he now needed to explain to her why he was here.

"I'm, uh, I'm meeting someone."

Emily's eyebrows shot up. There was a spike of indignation in her chest, and a retort on her lips. Then she remembered that she was here meeting someone, too. Someone Hotch disliked, very much. Emily glanced down at the glass in her hand, then at the door, then back to the glass. She looked anywhere but at Hotch.

"Where is Ava?" There was a hint of accusation in his voice; if she wasn't with her mother, why wasn't she with her father?

"She's with Pen." Emily replied. Hotch sat down on the stool beside her, the smell of his cologne invading her nostrils and bringing back a million memories that instantly flooded her brain.

"So, I'm guessing this isn't girls night, then." He said, shortly. "Scotch, neat, please." He said to the barman; she could have predicted that that was what he would order; it was his signature drink. She shook her head in response to his girls night question, but said nothing. Hotch had an inclination towards why she might be here, and he really wanted to be mature enough not to ask her. But he sighed heavily, took a drink of his scotch, and cleared his throat. "Are you meeting Rawson?"

"I'm supposed to be, yes." She was regretting every decision that had led to the awkwardness of this moment, but even more was she regretting the fact that all she wanted to do right now was kiss him, because the scent of his cologne was overwhelmingly familiar and comfortable.

This silence stretched out. It had never been this awkward between them before; Hotch knew it was to be expected. This awkwardness was the whole reason they had been avoiding each other. The only time they saw each other was when Hotch was picking up Ava, or when Emily was dropping her off at his, or when they were in work. And even in work, they avoided spending time alone as much as possible. Hotch had been assigning her to work with anyone but himself, and she had been perfectly content. Or, at least, she had pretended to be perfectly content, as he had. Neither knew the turmoil that was erupting inside the other.

Emily hadn't noticed that Hotch was spending up to twenty hours a day at the office and Hotch hadn't noticed that Emily was struggling with single parenthood. Not that Ava was a bad child, just that going from being a dual parent household and sharing the responsibility of their daughter to taking all of the responsibility on herself was quite the adjustment. Hotch saw Ava regularly and she spent a fair amount of time at his place, but his working habits hadn't changed and Emily still felt like she was taking a back seat to the job.

They broke the silence at the same time.

"Who are you meeting?"

"Why Rawson of all people?"

Emily frowned, her jaw dropping open. "What do you mean, why Rawson?"

"You're so obvious, Emily. I know you better than anyone and I know when you're doing something to spite someone." He wasn't looking at her, but at the mirror behind the bar. He raised the glass to his lips slowly, and took a long drink. She watched him, her eyes wide with indignation.

"It's been three months, Hotch." She told him. "This is not about you. This is about me, about moving on. You're right, you do know me better than anyone, which is why I can't believe you think so low of me."

She grabbed her bag from the bar, knocking over her martini as she jumped down from her seat and stormed towards the exit, angry tears springing to her eyes. Her heart was pounding for a wholly different reason now, it pounded with anger and with indignation and with shock that Hotch could think she would stoop so low as to actively try to make him jealous. Especially after she was the one who requested the divorce.

She pulled out her phone and dialed.

"Em?" The British accent came through, slightly surprised but not unhappy to hear from her. "Changed your mind, beautiful? Wanna reschedule to tonight?"

"What?" Emily was confused. They had definitely already scheduled their date for tonight, she remembered perfectly. "Mick, we scheduled for tonight at eight."

"Yeah, we did, and then you text me last night saying you wanted to reschedule because your kid got sick."

"No I didn't-" She trailed off as Hotch walked out of the pub and waved his phone at her, shaking his head. "Maybe I'm confused. I'll text you later, I've gotta go."

Hotch walked over to her and, although she was still angry with him, he looked as though he had something important to say and so she folded her arms across her chest and didn't object to his approaching her. He slipped his hands into his pockets and rocked back on his heels.

"So I just spoke to Beth. She told me I text her earlier saying I needed to reschedule. From what I heard of your conversation with Mick," There was some venom in his voice as he said Mick's name, but Emily did her best to ignore it. "I'm guessing much the same happened to you. Who do we know who doesn't want us to date other people and also has access to technology that would allow them to hack our phones?"

Emily knew where he was going with this, but she wasn't focusing on the fact that Penelope had hacked their phones in order to sabotage their dates, she was focusing on something else. Something that hurt her more than the things he had said earlier.

"Beth?" Her voice was shrill, her eyebrows raised. "You were getting at me for going on a date with Mick when you were meeting up with _Beth?_ Of all the women in the world, Hotch. You're such a hypocrite! I can't believe you would be so spiteful."

"Spiteful?" He looked genuinely shocked by her outburst. "You spent all of our time in California flirting with Mick right in front of me, and after we had slept together. Don't try and act like I'm the one trying to get one up on you, Em."

"But _Beth_ , Hotch. She's the reason we were almost never _us_. And I was not flirting with Mick in California!"

"You're the reason we're not still us, Emily! You don't get a say in who I do or don't date since you called it quits on our marriage. Do you not think I saw you two giggling across the table the night we had dinner?"

She couldn't believe they were having this argument. She also couldn't believe that while she had been offended by his apparent lack of interest in her interactions with Mick, he'd been jealous all along. The thought gave her an unwelcome pang of something like gloating. She hated that feeling.

"I'm going home, Hotch." She checked her watch. "Do you want to pick Ava up? I'm sure she'll still be awake, if you'd rather she spent the night at yours than at Pen's."

Hotch considered it, but ultimately shook his head. Ava would be having fun and picking her up would disturb her, plus his daughter was incredibly perceptive and if he picked her up, with the mood he was currently in and his mixed feelings about tonight, she would feel it and start asking all sorts of questions. "No, she can stay with Pen tonight and I'll pick her up in the morning. I'll drop her at school on Monday and you can pick her up."

Emily nodded. "I'll see you at work."

She walked away, taking out her phone to call a cab, as Hotch wandered off across the car park towards his car. _Their_ car. Not anymore. And, of course, just as she pulled out her phone and dialed, the rain started. Hotch pulled up beside her in his car.

"Come on, Em. Let me drive you home."

She wasn't going to argue with him as the rain grew heavier. She got into the passenger side of the car, putting her phone away. They spent much of the drive in absolute silence. They hadn't spent a drive in such an awkward silence since the days before they were dating, since they were both hiding their feelings for each other. Emily didn't know what to say to him. He didn't know what to say to her. They now both knew that the other was dating again. What were they supposed to do with that information?

"I'll talk to Garcia tomorrow." Hotch told her, "Establish boundaries."

"Come on, Hotch, we both know she didn't come up with the idea by herself. I'm willing to bet there's only one person you told about Beth. So, obviously, Rossi told Morgan. Morgan told everyone else. It's not just Penelope that we have to talk to."

Their little group had always had a bit of a problem with boundaries. They were a family, and family meddled, but never had they crossed the line and meddled in each others love lives. Emily knew that Hotch was right, that at this moment in their lives they needed to ask their friends to take a step back and leave them to sort through their own emotional mess, but she also knew that because of the dynamics of their job, any emotional turmoil in one of their lives had the potential to affect them all.

"We'll talk to them on Monday."

She nodded, agreeing with him, and was silent for the rest of the journey. He stopped outside the house and it felt so wrong that he wasn't going to come inside with her. She sat there for a moment, looking up at their house and wondering if she could cope with living there, with all of the memories. It would always be _their_ house.

She looked over at him, and found him already staring at her.

"Can we do this?" He asked her, his eyes full of confusion and pain. She didn't speak, she just raised her eyebrows, questioningly, in response. "Can we move on from this, and get to a place where we can be around each other again, and not have it be...like this?"

Emily din't have an answer for him. She wanted to believe that they could, but right now everything was confusing. She was still so desperately in love with him, but their marriage had been slowly disintegrating before her very eyes and she just couldn't watch it disappear; she couldn't watch him fall out of love with her. It wasn't an option. But seeing what her decision had done to him was almost worse. She felt guilty every time she looked at him, could see the accusation she was looking for in his eyes. She blamed their job, but she couldn't tell him that. His job was what had ruined his marriage to Haley, and Penelope had already compare her to Haley today, she didn't want to look too deeply into that. Their problem had always been the fact that she could leave work at work, whereas he never could. He didn't compartmentalize the way she did. In the end, she couldn't answer him.

"Goodnight, Aaron." She said, in a quiet voice that was almost a whisper.

"Goodnight, Em." He wanted to lean in and kiss her, because dropping her off like this almost felt like the early days of their relationship, when they were only dating, but he couldn't. Things were different now; he'd never be free to kiss her like that again.

She climbed out of the car and, like that, was out of his reach. He watched her until he knew she was safe inside, then drove away.


	20. Lecture

Emily cancelled brunch with Penelope the next morning, and instead asked her to drop Ava off with Elizabeth and then come to the house. Hotch invited the others. The others all knew why they were being asked to come over, but Penelope still just thought that she and Emily were just going to have lunch. So when she walked into the house and immediately spotted Morgan, Reid and JJ sitting on the sofa, looking like naughty children, her face fell and she let out a little squeak of surprise.

"Uh...are we having group breakfast?" She asked Emily, giving her a hopefully pleading look.

Emily pushed the door closed behind her, shaking her head, her dark hair pulled up in a pony tail. "No. No, we are not. We need to have a talk with you guys about boundaries."

Hotch was leaning near the fireplace, with his arms folded across his chest. "And before anyone asks where Dave is," He looked pointedly at Reid, who had just opened his mouth and who now closed it slowly, and settled back into the couch cushions. "He's the only one we can trust to not have been involved in this. Are we wrong?"

"No, you're not wrong." JJ admitted.

Emily was standing behind the sofa, her hands in the front pockets of her jeans, watching Hotch stare down her team mates. Garcia slowly walked to the armchair in the bay window and sat down, setting her handbag down on the floor and glanced at the others on the sofa, all of whom were still looking very awkward. She almost felt bad for them, since they were being subjected to Hotch's famous stare down that he usually reserved for criminals they tracked down. She understood their intentions, but it was time they set out some boundaries within their little group. It would be a difficult conversation to have; after fifteen years of living in each others pockets, of being each others family, asking them to take a step back now would be a big adjustment but it was also something she and Hotch needed. Their divorce was not something to be discussed and negotiated within the family; the divorce was between the two of them and it had to stay that way.

"You organised for both Rawson and Beth to not show up. Yes or no?"

"Yes." The four said in unison.

"Guys," Emily sighed and walked around the sofa to sit on the remaining armchair, opposite Penelope, "We're adults. We're government officials. We are not teenagers in high school who can meddle in each others love lives. This," She glanced at Hotch, who was looking stern as ever, "is a difficult enough time for us. We can't fight you, too."

He didn't miss the use of the intensifier. They weren't fighting, at least not anymore, but sometimes Emily felt like they were. The separation felt like she was fighting something every day; fighting her urges to break down, fighting the urge to run back to him, fighting the urge to ask why he didn't fight her when she told him she wanted a separation.

"We know we overstepped," JJ said, leaning back on the sofa next to Reid, who was staring at his hands on his lap, "But we're finding it difficult to see the two of you apart because we know you're hurting."

"JJ, you and Penelope encouraged me to go on a date with Mick." Emily pointed out, her brow furrowed in confusion. She was picking at her nails.

"You did?" There was a look of something in Hotch's eyes as he glanced between JJ and Penelope. Something like betrayal. It broke Penelope's heart and she felt tears spring to her eyes and tried to blink them away, hoping her large, horn-rimmed glasses would at least partially obscure her outburst of emotion.

"Because you're miserable, E." Penelope was trying to defend the actions of herself and JJ. Emily looked affronted.

"I am not miserable, I'm adjusting."

"You're not sad?" Hotch looked slightly more hurt. Emily felt as though each revelation was chipping slowly away at him.

She shook her head at him. "Don't be ridiculous, I didn't say that. Of course I'm sad. Don't you think that is a conversation for another time? A conversation to have in private, maybe?"

He gave a stiff nod and turned his eyes to the carpet.

Morgan and Spencer hadn't spoken this whole time. Spencer looked like Ava did sometimes when she spoke about the divorce; like a child torn between two parents and struggling to understand. Morgan didn't quite look angry; Emily would have had something to say if he did look angry over this. But no, it wasn't anger in his eyes, it was something else. Something like frustration or confusion. He looked like he had in California, when he couldn't understand why the two of them couldn't make it work. In some ways, Morgan was the one who needed to take the longest stride backwards and give them the most space, because although both Hotch and Emily were fairly certain that Penelope had been the pointer guy for their little plan, Morgan was the most likely to voice his own personal opinions about the divorce.

"We understand the need for boundaries, the difference between the family and your marriage," Morgan began, in a very diplomatic way that Emily was a little surprised with, "But I don't think the two of you understand what your divorce is doing to the rest of us. Maybe that is selfish, and we're sorry if it is, and guys stop me if I'm putting words in your mouths, but we can't be around each other and feel awkward. And even more importantly, we can't do our jobs if there is tension."

"There isn't." Hotch cut across him, "It has been three months, a quarter of a year, and we have solved several cases in that time, successfully and with no more time needed than the average. At the end of the day, if you're finding it difficult to work because of the divorce, that is down to your own personal issues, and has nothing to do with what is going on between Emily and myself."

Morgan said nothing more, he just nodded and sat back on the sofa. There seemed to be nothing left to say. Spencer hadn't said a word, which was unusual. Emily asked if anyone wanted to stay for breakfast, but it was a unanimous and resounding 'no' from the room. She saw them all out and as Spencer passed her to leave, he turned. There was only Emily, Hotch and himself left in the room.

"Do you remember the fact I told you on your wedding day, that you rolled your eyes at and chastised me for?" Both shook their heads. Spencer smiled slightly, but it was a sad smile. "I told you that about 40 to 50 percent of married couples in the United States get divorced, and that the divorce rate for subsequent marriages is even higher."

Then he turned and left, leaving them with that eerie little bit of trivia from their past. Once again, they were alone, and Emily was painfully aware of it.

She looked at Hotch, who was slowly edging towards the door. "Um, are you sure you don't want any breakfast? There's fruit, muesli, anything really."

She offered, all the while hoping, and knowing, he would say no. As she had known he would, he graciously declined her offer. He smiled and nodded at her, but made no attempt to say goodbye in any affectionate way. She closed the door behind him and leaned her forehead against the frosted glass window.

"Morgan is right," Hotch thought to himself, descending the steps and walking slowly towards his car, "It is awkward."

* * *

The following day at the BAU, they all entered the round room and sat in silence for a moment, waiting for Hotch to introduce the case. Rossi came in last, the wall of silence hitting him like a frying pan to the face. He warily walked around the table to the available seat between Emily and Morgan, and sat down.

"Good morning to you all, too."

There was a low, unenthusiastic murmur of greeting around the table.

"Was there a party last night that I didn't know about? Because the only time this room is this quiet is when people are hungover."

A few of them shook their heads. Penelope perked up and spoke. "Everything is fine, Rossi."

It was then that Hotch walked in, holding a thick case file. That was never a good sign; a thick case file tended to mean a lot of victims. Hotch went on to explain that this case was one that went back about four and a half years; in that time there had been five missing women reports that had not been connected until now. The only reason that the Dallas police force had connected the reports now was because each of the reports had been filed at least ten months apart, with the fifth and most recent having been filed only earlier that week.

"Victimology is specific; Caucasian brunette's in their thirties." Spencer noted. Hotch glanced across the table at Emily, but she missed it; she was reading the file in front of her and trying to pick up on any information that could lead her towards evidence.

"It's an incredibly patient timeline, we should investigate the surrounding cities maybe and see if any of the missing persons reported there fit the victimology, and also fit into the time between the Dallas reports."

"I'm on it." Garcia was already tapping away on her laptop.

"Great, everybody grab their go-bags, wheels up in 30."


	21. Water Under the Bridge

She was quiet on the plane. The others didn't really notice, but Hotch did. She had gone into the bathroom to phone her mother and ask her to pick Ava up from school, then after she had come out she had sat in complete silence, tapping the phone against her lip and staring out of the window. He knew she was listening to the conversation, because her hair was pushed behind her ear, but it was unlike Emily to be so detached from what was happening around her. When JJ got up to go to the bathroom, Hotch sat down in the vacated seat opposite her, knowing he wouldn't have much time for a conversation.

"Are you alright?"

She looked quite startled to have been asked that question and glanced at the others; Rossi, Morgan and Reid were sitting at the table on the other side of the aisle discussing the case. Garcia hadn't accompanied them on this case. Emily looked back at Hotch and just nodded, not opening her mouth to speak. Hotch raised an eyebrow at her.

"Don't even try that with me."

"I'm fine I just..I hate leaving Ava. I know there's nothing I can do about it, I know she copes with it better than I do, and sometimes I'm jealous that my mother is a better grandmother to her than she ever was mother to me, but leaving her is still so difficult for me. It makes me feel like I'm failing her."

Emily fully expected Aaron to try to comfort her and tell her she was being ridiculous, that Ava loved her and understood, but instead she found that he started nodding.

"I understand. Not only do I feel the same way, but it's exactly the feeling I used to get when Jack was little, too. Especially after Haley died."

They always said that, that she 'died'. The phrase 'was murdered' was just too much when talking about Haley, even now, years later.

"I think you should talk to Ava about it. Maybe not in so many words," He clarified himself, seeing her skeptical expression, "But children can be reassuring. I spoke to Jack about it once, when he was tiny and I was leaving him with Jessica for a case. I explained it all to him before we left and asked him how he felt; he told me he understood because he knew I was doing my job to keep him safe. And I was; after having kids, the job became about making the world a safer place for them, if slowly."

Emily was smiling by the end of his speech. He was glad, but when he asked her why she just shook her head. JJ was back, anyway, so Hotch got up and went back to his seat on the other side of the aisle. Emily went back to staring out of the window, but at least this time there was a smile on her beautiful face. He wanted to know what that smile was about.

Emily thought it might kill them both if she admitted that she was smiling because she was remembering what falling in love with him felt like.

* * *

When they touched down in Dallas, they all headed straight to the precinct since, as of yet, they had no other leads to lead them anywhere else. That was, until they arrived at the sight and the Detective in charge informed them that they had been given an abduction site.

"JJ, Prentiss, you go and check out the abduction site, we'll stay here and work on victimology. Morgan check in with Garcia to see if she's found anything in the surrounding areas.

They split off and Emily and JJ went back to the cars, putting the coordinates for the abduction site into the GPS. The car trip was likely to be excruciating if one of them didn't say something so Emily cleared her throat, her hands on the steering wheel, and glanced sideways at her friend.

"I'm sorry if it felt like we grilled you guys the other day." Her apology was sincere; at the end of the day both she and Hotch understood that the team had their best interests at heart and that they were only looking out for them, wanting them to be happy, wanting them to be happy _together_ , and Emily considered it important that they know that. "We know you guys only did something that you thought would be..helpful isn't quite the word, but just know that I understand."

"I guess Garcia and I just felt kind of responsible; we did sort of push you into Rawson's arms on girls night." Emily was shaking her head as JJ spoke.

"No, I was sober enough to know what I was doing _and_ we chatted the following week, so that one is on me, not on you guys, I don't know why I made out like it was your fault."

JJ looked a little nervous. "I'm not so sure Hotch sees it that way; I'm pretty sure he now hates the both of us. He thinks we're pulling you further away from him by forcing you to go on dates with men he hates."

"He doesn't hate Mick."

"Em?"

"Yeah, okay, he sort of hates Mick."

They elapsed into a much more comfortable silence, now that the tinge of unpleasantness had been taken care of. It had been her choice to continue talking to Mick, but ever since Saturday night, she'd been dodging his calls and avoiding replying to his messages like some nervous teenager. But she wasn't nervous about him; Mick didn't scare her or intimidate her, and she was past the point of getting butterflies over some guy. No, it was the look on Hotch's face when he had seen her in that bar, when he had found out it was Mick she was meeting, and it was the feeling inside her chest when she had found out he was meeting Beth. If what he felt was anything compared to that, it was putting her off texting Mick back, because that feeling was awful. There was something else gnawing at her, too, something preventing her from moving forward in her relationship with Mick, but she couldn't quite put her finger on what it was.

* * *

"I'm sorry my darlings, I do not bring good news or good tidings." Garcia was up on the screen in the office they had been assigned. She was typing frantically away as she spoke to them. "I have gone back six years, in case the abductions started elsewhere earlier, but there is nothing that fits both the timeline and the victimology, although the area around Dallas seems rife with suspicious and scary criminal activity. But nothing that seems to fit this case."

"Alright, thanks Garcia. Keep looking. We'll call you if we come up with anything." Hotch clicked off the screen and turned to the others, folding his arms across his chest. "We have nothing on this one."

"We'd better hope Emily and JJ find something." Spencer pointed out, rubbing a hand over his face, "Because we don't have ten months to wait this out."


	22. Steps in the Right Direction

It was 7pm by the time Emily and JJ got back to the precinct. The faces that greeted them instantly told them that the boys had come up with nothing. They, however, had a small piece of important information.

"She got into the car willingly." Emily said, with a nod at the photograph on the wall. "We have an eyewitness who saw her get into a silver Volvo, turn the corner in the passenger seat of the car and then disappear from sight."

"It's not a lot, but it's enough to tell us that she felt comfortable with the unsub." JJ said, feeling the little bit of hope that their clue had ignited within her slowly fade as the boys all looked a little skeptical.

"If the person she got into the car with was even the unsub." Spencer was right, of course. They had no way of knowing whether or not the person driving was their unsub; their eyewitness hadn't been able to give them a licence plate, because they hadn't thought it important to do so at the time, which was a perfectly normal response to somebody voluntarily getting into a car.

Emily was nodding. "Okay, so we need to talk to her husband and find out whether they have any family or friends who own a silver Volvo."

The husband said no; they didn't know anybody with a silver Volvo. Garcia followed the Volvo on the speed cameras for a while, but eventually, that lead faded to nothing. She lost the car, and they lost their lead.

* * *

The clock was ticking away, had been for hours, at an irritatingly fast pace. The hours seemed to be flying by, and yet still they were getting nowhere. With each passing hour, each of them was acutely aware that the victims chances of survival were dramatically decreasing.

"Let's go over this again." Hotch said, and the whole team groaned. JJ dropped her head into her hands, raking her hands back through her hair. Emily tipped the last of her coffee into her mouth and stood up, walking over to the coffee station they had set up, pouring her fourth cup of the night. For someone who gave up coffee years ago, tonight she was going through it like it was her last night on earth. "Who are the victims?"

"Slim, athletic brunette's in their early 30's." Spencer replied, "They all have relatively affluent jobs, although nothing too high profile. They range from single to married, so that doesn't seem to be a factor."

"The victimology suggests a pattern, suggests the unsub is using the victims as a substitute for someone, or a replacement. The appearance is the thing of most significance, right now." Reid reiterated, for the fifth time.

"We've been over this, Hotch." Morgan was getting irritated, that much was evident in his voice. Hotch didn't reply; he knew as well as the others did that while Morgan's anger was directed at Hotch, it stemmed from his inability to help the situation, from his feeling helpless. They all felt the same way.

"She knows the unsub, or she trusts the unsub." Hotch continued, "Female unsub, maybe. Or someone who looks nonthreatening; weak, unimposing."

That was it.

That was all they had. They hit a brick wall. The clock sounded louder than ever as each of them lapsed into desperate thought, each raking through their brains to find something within their profiling knowledge that would apply to this situation. The silence stretched uncomfortably on until a noise from the computer screeched through the silence, making Reid jump. Garcia popped up on the screen; she looked far too energetic and excited for this time of night, but they all knew that was good news.

"What have you got for us, baby girl?"

"What haven't I got for you, my darlings," Garcia was practically bouncing in her seat. "I've had a lot of caffeine; the news I have for you isn't exciting or good, but it is helpful, I think. Don't ask me how I got here, but I discovered that roughly ten months after each of the women were taken, four babies were put up for adoption at the local agency; all boys, all by the same woman, Eleanor Kent. However, I tried to track her name and Eleanor Kent has been dead for five years and so far I can't find any people linked to her who seem likely to use her name. She was an only child, so she has no sisters, no nieces, and she never had any children. But I will keep looking!"

"Garcia, that's great." Emily said, standing up and walking over to the whiteboard. She jotted down their new information, while the others started talking a mile a minute.

"Do we think the unsub is impregnating these women? Or is the unsub abducting them after they find out they're pregnant?" Reid asked.

"Either way," JJ pointed out, "Our unsub would need access to medical records. I'll get in touch with the local hospitals and arrange for us to go in and talk to them, find out if there are any suspicious characters, anyone they would ask us to look out for."

Finally, it felt as though they were getting somewhere with this case.

"We're not going to be any good tomorrow without any sleep. Let's head to the hotel, and first think we'll split and head to the different hospitals to find out what we can." Hotch dismissed them and they were all glad to fall into bed, if only for a few short hours.


	23. Mutual Comfort

Emily's night was a restless one. She was too hot, so she kicked off the covers that were sticking to her, but then she was too cold so pulled them up; this cycle repeated for half an hour before she she gave up, climbing out of bed and wrapping the dressing gown supplied by the hotel around her slim frame. She walked to the doors that led to her small balcony, opening them and hissing in a breath at the change in temperature. Once she adjusted, the cool air was nice on her burning skin.

The air felt heavy; as though there was a storm about to hit. It pressed down on her as she leaned on the rail. Even if she was comfortable, Emily doubted whether she would be able to sleep; this case was affecting her. Perhaps it was because they still had no leads, or because the victimology pointed to her.

Since they'd learned of the potential link between the unsub and the medical industry, there had been an idea in Emily's head that she knew Hotch would hate. It seemed logical to her that if they could find a link between the victims and a hospital, then the best way to discover the unsub was to try to attract their attention. Since Emily seemed to be her 'type', why not use that to their advantage? Yeah, Hotch wasn't going to go for that in a million years.

Just as a delicious breeze wafted over her, Emily heard a light rap on her bedroom door. She frowned, wrapping the white gown tighter around herself, being dressed only in her underwear, but even as she neared the door she knew who it would be. Glancing at the clock beside her bed, she saw that it was nearing four am.

She opened the door to see, of course, Hotch. He was still wearing his suit, one hand thrust into his pocket, the other arm propping him up on the door frame. His eyes were tired, his features dark and troubled. Emily frowned again, this time with concern.

"Hey," She said, softly, leaning her head on the door. She didn't really want to invite him in; the last time they'd been in a hotel room together...well, that couldn't happen again, for the sake of their professional relationship. "Is everything okay?"

He shook his head, standing up straight and running his hand over his face. "Not really. This case really has me on edge. Can I-uh, can I come in?" When she hesitated, his brow furrowed and he added, "Please?"

Glancing around her at the room and raising her eyes to the heavens, Emily turned to him and, reluctantly, she nodded, stepping back and allowing him to enter. He immediately walked over to the bed and sat down, heavily. Emily shut the door but remained close to it, her arms folded across her middle. She was a little chilly now, she noted, her temperature having fluctuated again, and she padded across the carpet to pull the door to.

"You couldn't sleep either?" He questioned.

She shook her head. "No, but I think I'm coming down with something. Nothing serious," She added, at the look of concern on his face, "I just keep having these hot and cold flashes, but I'm fine. Please don't start worrying about me, I can deal with myself. I'll go to the pharmacy when we get back to Quantico, it's probably the flu."

He seemed placated by that, nodded absently. His eyes were unfocused, staring at the wall opposite her bed, and his hands were clasped, his elbows resting on his knees. Emily had seen Hotch endure every kind of emotion since she had first met him, and she knew what this was. This was stress on a level that he never showed the team; he always went through it in secret whenever they had a particularly difficult case, or one that hit too close to home. Like this one.

She walked over slowly, sitting down gently on the bed beside him. She was feeling very undressed next to him, as the gown wasn't a full length one, but one that fell to her mid-thigh, but he didn't seem to be interested in her appearance tonight, which reassured her.

"Hey," She said, taking one of his hands in hers, "Hey, are you doing okay?"

He looked down at their joined hands and then looked up into her eyes. "I know what you're planning."

That took her by surprise and she frowned again, opening her mouth to say something.

"Don't deny it, Em, please." He wasn't angry, he wasn't even trying to argue with her. He just sounded tired. "I can't sleep because I'm worried. I'm worried because I can't think of anything else to do. Your plan might be the only one we have and I hate to put you in the line of fire."

Emily was smiling now. Not out of happiness, not out of amusement. She was smiling because no one in the world knew her as well as he did. And he knew her well enough that he had figured out her plan without her even saying anything about it; they had the same thought process.

"We both need to sleep before tomorrow." She said softly, so softly that it was almost a whisper. He nodded, his eyes still on hers.

"Can I stay?" His question was apprehensive and Emily hesitated for a moment, before she nodded. She nodded because she, too, was scared of her plan, scared of what tomorrow could bring. They didn't know what unsub they would be up against but they did know how quickly circumstances could change; one moment they could be the ones doing the hunting and the next moment, Emily could end up being the prey and none of them could do anything about it. It was messed up playing with somebody's life like that, but Emily had a better chance than the civilian women that this monster was abducting.

They both stood up; Emily went and turned off the light before removing her dressing gown and slipping underneath the covers. She heard the rustle of fabric as he got undressed, then the rustle of the sheets as he too got into the bed.

Now, neither of them could sleep for an entirely different reason. There was ten minutes of stillness where neither of them were comfortable, where both were painfully aware of the others presence, then Emily gave in and turned over. She couldn't see much in the darkness, but the little moonlight that came in from the French doors illuminated his jawline and the planes of his chest. He looked at her and she shifted towards him, resting her head on his arm and resting her leg over his. His arm came down around her, holding her to him.

This was how they had slept for ten years, and, listening to his heartbeat, Emily quickly drifted away.


	24. In Motion

The following morning, over breakfast, the team weren't very happy to hear about their plan. Morgan was outraged.

"You're kidding me, right, man?" He asked Hotch, his face contorted with confusion and anger, "You're really gonna let her do this?"

Emily wanted to argue over his phrasing, over his use of 'let her' but she mused that Hotch was technically her superior, and that Morgan wasn't being sexist. He wouldn't dare; he'd seen her kick as much ass as he had, if not more. _And_ she had literally come back from the dead. Of course, so had Reid, but Emily considered that information irrelevant at this moment in time.

"Unless anybody has a better plan, yes, I think Emily's idea is the best lead we have right now. These women are running out of time." Hotch's voice was stern, his expression stone; a far cry from the man who had come to her room last night.

"It's not right, Hotch, putting Emily in danger that way."

"We'll all be nearby to protect her. She won't be in any real danger."

"No real danger," JJ interrupted, frowning, "Hotch, have you heard yourself?"

"Can we please stop talking about me and my decision as though I am not here?" Emily said, her fists clenched on the breakfast table. JJ and Morgan, sitting across from her, fell silent, as did Hotch beside her. Reid and Rossi had remained silent throughout the debate, but now Reid cleared his throat and they all looked to him.

"If I may, Emily," He said, and she nodded for him to continue, "I was considering the same plan," Morgan made a gruff noise of indignation, but Reid continued, "It makes sense to use any advantage that we have in this case, and we have the element of surprise; if Emily can entice the unsub into revealing themselves and that can lead us to where they're keeping these women, then I think we owe it to them to try anything we can."

Morgan looked between the three of them, from one to the other, like they had all lost their minds. He turned his back on them with a vocalization of his frustration. Emily raised her eyebrows and folded her arms across the chest in reaction to the swear words that fell from Morgan's lips. When he turned back to them, he was composed and he just nodded,stiffly. JJ didn't look happy, but she bit her tongue and made no comment.

It was at that point that Emily's phone started ringing.

"It's Garcia," She told the group, glancing at her caller ID before answering the phone. "Garcia, what's do you have?"

"I have a lead. All of the victims were registered to the same hospital, so you only have one destination my lovelies."

* * *

Morgan didn't speak on the drive over. Emily didn't push him to do so; as far as she was concerned, it wasn't up to her to try and extract conversation from him. He didn't believe in her plan, and his opinion was perfectly valid; she'd feel the same way if it was his plan, if he was putting himself in this kind of danger.

Emily wasn't nervous, not like she had been the night before. She knew the team was there for back up. They'd be stationed inconspicuously outside the room, so they'd be on alert for any sign of a struggle.

"All of these women were registered to the same OB/GYN, so you need to ask to see a Dr Drake because it seems as though she's the only link between these women." Garcia's voice was coming out of JJ's mobile from where she sat in the front seat.

"The suspect is a woman?" JJ asked, sounding slightly surprised.

"It makes sense, if it's the babies she's interested in." Emily pointed out, "Women are naturally more maternal than men are paternal. Women are less likely to hurt children; men might have disposed of the babies in a way other than putting them up for adoption."

"So it might not be the women this unsub is interested in; it might not be a fetish about mothers, or anything to do with the mothers, but it's about the children? About parenthood?" JJ suggested.

That gave them another angle to come at the case from.

"Maybe the unsub lost a child of their own?" Hotch suggested, "Garcia, do a background check on this Dr Drake and find out if she, or anyone very close to her, ever lost a child."

"I'm on it."

* * *

They parked a little way away from the hospital in order to be inconspicuous. They were all dressed like civilians, except Hotch; he was wearing his usual professional attire, but since the rest of them were dressed casually, he was less noticeable. It was imperative that they not all be seen going in together, that they appear as strangers.

Each of them was carrying a concealed weapon, but to look at them, no one would ever have guessed it. Emily could feel her gun pressed against her stomach, in the waistband of her jeans, beneath her loose blouse and the cool metal calmed her, reassured her. The stress from the night before was slowly returning.

She felt a hand on her own and looked down at it, noticing the tan lines on the ring finger. She followed the arm up to Hotch's face.

"You were picking your nails. You're nervous." She just nodded.

"It'll be okay."

As much as Emily wanted to know he was right, she couldn't stop thinking about the little girl at home who Emily knew was just willing her parents to come home. Last time they were away, Elizabeth had caught her praying for her mommy and daddy to come back. It had broken Emily's heart when she'd heard about it, but out of fear of embarrassing her daughter, she'd never mentioned it. Now she wished that she had. Some of Ava's faith could be useful right now.

Slowly the group outside the hospital shrank, as each of them entered the building and headed towards the OB/GYN ward; Morgan and JJ entered together, since it made sense for them to look like a couple. The plan was for Emily and Hotch to enter together, for the same reason, but to make Hotch wait outside. If anybody asked Spencer or Rossi what they were doing there, Rossi was to claim that he was lost, and Spencer was to claim that he was waiting for his girlfriend in one of the rooms.

"This brings back memories." Hotch commented, as they watched Spencer walk into the hospital. Emily glanced from the boys retreating back, to Hotch, and then back again, making a questioning noise. "Going to the OB/GYN with you."

She smiled a little to herself. "Yeah, it's been a while since we did that, huh?"

"You ready to do it one more time?" Hotch said, a small smile on his face, as he held out a hand to her. She inhaled deeply, before slipping her hand into his and walking with him towards the hospital.


End file.
